FROM WEED TO WHEAT: A DIACHRONIC APPROXIMATION TO ANCIENT BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE SANTA MARÍA VALLEY (ARGENTINEAN NORTHWEST)

PETRUCCI, NATALIA; LEMA, VERÓNICA S. ; POCHETTINO, MARÍA LELIA; PALAMARCZUK, VALERIA; SPANO, ROMINA; TARRAGÓ, MYRIAM

VEGETATION HISTORY AND ARCHAEOBOTANY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2018 vol. 27 p. 229 - 239

0939-6314

The aim of this paper is to analyze continuities and changes in bio cultural diversity in the southern sector of the Santa María Valley, Argentinean Northwest, in a time span ranging from the first Millennium of the Era up to the first centuries after the Spanish Conquest. Association degrees between plants and humans, as well as management practices were employed as categories to investigate biocultural history through plant macrorremains analysis. Samples were obtained from four archaeological sites (Rincon Chico 1, Rincon Chico 15, Soria 2, El Colorado). As a result we identified 661 carporemains belonging to20 taxa and determined their character of wild/weed/crop, related to strategies of gathering and cultivation. The results suggest changes through time considering the preponderance of ruderal weeds in the earliest of the archaeological sites along with a diversity of association degrees, while a dichotomy between wild and domesticated -represented by the couple maize-algarroba- is present in those sites corresponding to the Late Period. These scenarios suggest that agroforestal or silvopastoralist systems could have been part of past management practices in the area. Chenopodium remains indicate past wild-weedy-crop complexes in the cultivated plots and the introduction of Old World crops such as wheat and barley did not replace the consumption of local plants, mainly algarroba and maize, during early colonial moments.