Regional archaeology and scale in Patagonia (southern South America)

R. BARBERENA

Coffs Harbor

Congreso; Australian Archaeological Association 2013 Conference; 2013

Australian Archaeological Association

Regional archaeology conflates current research decisions, such as those related to spatial coverage and sampling intensity, and the intrinsic spatial scale of past societies and historical processes. The main challenge is to achieve concordance between these two levels, a goal that is usually hampered by our a priori ignorance of the magnitude of the latter. Based on Late Holocene cases from Patagonia (southern South America), this presentation compares proxies that operate at different spatial scales, suggesting methodological insights for regional archaeology. At the regional level, stable isotope data (13C, 15N) allow evaluating the consumption of marine and terrestrial proteins, indicating which areas of Patagonia were systematically connected to the sea, and which were not. This is informative about aspects of mobility, providing a measure of the spatial scale of past societies and informing sampling decisions. Importantly, this regional isotopic proxy produces expectations for the archaeological record at smaller scales (i.e. locality and archaeological site) in terms of modes of human occupation. Conversely, local-scale evidence has the capacity to add complexity regarding intensity of occupation and qualitative demographic tendencies. In sum, the heuristic combination of lines of research at diverse spatial scales is a powerful tool for developing regional archaeology.