Interaction, social identity, agency and change during Middle Horizon San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile): A multidimensional and interdisciplinary perspective

•We studied the creation of a local social identity in SPA during the MH.•Interdisciplinary analyses reveal different practices and discourses of affiliation.•These affiliations operate simultaneously at various spatial and social scales.•Local identity materialized through mobilization of local and foreign components.•In MH local identity reinforced as SPA integrates into nested hierarchy of polities.

In the present paper we discuss different levels of social identities operating simultaneously in the social landscape of San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile) during the Middle Horizon (ca. 500–950 AD). Complementary lines of evidence are approached from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to identify distinct patterns of affiliation and differentiation which were played out by local agents. We propose these patterns reflect different levels of social integration, whereby the local community of San Pedro de Atacama reinforced its corporate identity in spite of growing social differences and integrated into a higher-level organization of nested hierarchies making up the Tiwanaku state.