The ceramics and pigments from Piedras Blancas (600-1000 AC), Aguada Culture: clay provision, technology, and social change at the Ambato Valley (Argentina).

BERTOLINO, SILVANA; ZIMMERMANN, UDO; GASTALDI, MARCOS R.; LAGUENS ANDRÉS

Texas

Congreso; Symposium on Characterization of Andean Ceramics. Society for American Archaeology 79th annual meeting; 2014

Society for American Archaeology

Piedras Blancas (600-1000 AC) is a residencial site where a well settled, more complex andunequal society developed after the political, social and ideological changes that occured in the Ambato valley in the IV century of the Christian era. It belongs to the Regional Integration Period (300-1000 AC). Known as the Aguada Culture, these changes spread regionally, encompassing northwestern Argentina.The pottery production reflected those changes within the iconography (?the draconian style?). Technologycal classes reduced from 44 to 12 while two of them gain popularity: Classes E (common) and A1 (black incise) grow 100% and 30% respectively.The aim of this research is to help to understand the role of these objects on the new society, the continuity and disruptions of the technology, the organization of good production, management and selection of natural resources by this culture and the access to those resources. Pottery sherds, pigments and other possible raw materials found at this site as well as several local clay resources identified within the valley (Catamarca, Argentina), were characterized on their mineralogy, geochemistry and other physical and technological features. Cetain minerals and chemical elements are found to be traceable and distinctive from other Aguada styles like the Aguada Portezuelo.