Entering and exiting: A Methodological and Theoretical Study of the Entrances at the prehistoric site Pichao, (Valle de Santa María, Colalao de Valle, Prov. Tucumán ) North-western Argentina

HENRIK B. LINDSKOUG

GOTARC Series D No.67. REPORT FROM THE PROJECT SOCIAL INNOVATION IN INDIAN CULTURE BY THE TIME OF EUROPEAN CONTACT

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANCIENT HISTORY, GÖTEBORG UNIVERSITY

Lugar: Göteborg; Año: 2007; p. 22 - 60

Published in GOTARC series D. No 67. Stenborg, Per & Cornell, Per (Red) 2007. Report from the project Social innovation in Indian culture by the time of European contact. Pichao Project Reports No 4. Vetenskaplig redovisning avseende bidrag mottagna från Birgit och Gad Rausings Stiftelse för Humanistisk Forskning. This paper will deal with settlements and mainly entrances/doorways between and inside ofbuildings at the site of Pichao in the Santa María Valley, North-western Argentina. The study i s based on surface observations done during 6 days of field-studies in 2001 at the site of Pichao, documentation from earlier fieldwork at Pichao and literature studies made after the research inPichao. The focus of this study is on entrances/doorways/exits/openings. Different parts of the Pichao site have been investigated to make a comparison between entrances/openings in two different geographical sectors. Questions that I shall try to answer are: Where do entrances lead? Where are they located? What do they connect? Are paths leading between different entrances? Is there some way of controlling the paths? Who had access to the entrances and the paths. Where are they placed? What is the size of the entrances? Is there a reason behind the size of the entrances? How were they used? These questions are essential when discussing communication between rectangular and circular structures and entrances. A discussion both of functional(istic) and symbolic meanings of entrances/exits is presented. Two different sectors, sector VIII and sector X, have been selected and studied in this investigation. The reason behind the choice of sector VIII and sector X is the geographical similarity of the two sectors. One thing that differs sector VIII from sector X is the different types of ceramics encountered on the surface.