Human Biogeography in the Diamante Valley, (Central Western Argentina): Integrating Different Data in a New Research Design

FERNANDO FRANCHETTI; OTAOLA, CLARA; GIARDINA, MIGUEL

Orlando

Congreso; 81th SAA Annual Meeting.; 2016

Society American Archaeology

The archaeology from the Diamante River Valley, located in Mendoza, Argentina, has been carried out since the beginning of the seventies. The information generated along these years was oriented in several study programs and was motivated by diverse research questions. Different kinds of surveys were done and very few data was published. Most of the archaeological information we have nowadays from this Valley comes from excavations using old techniques, some modern excavations and from distributional surveys within cultural resource management projects.The main objective is to improve our knowledge about human biogeography in this ecologically diverse area. We present a random sampling design for the Diamante Valley, where 3 areas located in the highlands, the piedmont and the lowlands were selected. The aim is to test differences and variability in the use of the space and resources. In this paper we will focus on our first challenge of this research program: integrating the background information we compiled from previous archaeological investigations with the methodological approach we developed in our own distributional surveys.