A multiple archaeoethnobotanical approach to the El Shincal Inka economy.

CAPPARELLI, AYLEN

Sevilla, España

Congreso; 52º International Congress of Americanists; 2006

Universidad de Sevilla

The site of El Shincal (27º 41´14´´ S and 67º 10´31´´ W), distant 6 km from the modern village of Londres de Quimivil, Catamarca Province, Argentina at an elevation of 1300 m asl. It extends along the south eastern-facing foothills of the pre-Andean Belen Mountains, at the bottom of the Hualfin valley. Different kinds of structures (kallankas, sinchiwasi, ushno) including processing areas -mainly areas with mortars for grinding-, are distributed surrounding the central square (aukaipata) of this Administrative Center. A ceremonial structure or ushno is placed in the centre of the square, and a large storage area extends on the very top of a hill. It is thought that El Shincal played an important role in relation to the traffic of goods between several inka sites all around the region. The goal of this paper is to analyse El Shincal Economy from the study of the interrelations between its inhabitants with their natural environment. This goal is investigated through the analysis of three different information sources: Ecological- Description of modern vegetation and patterns and process of vegetation dynamics in the study area. Ethnographic- Recording of actual uses of native species by modern inhabitants of the study area as a basis for hypothesizing about the utilization of those species in prehistoric times. Archaeobotanical- Recovery of the botanical macroremains from different locations of the archaeological site. With respect to climatic and floristic data of the area we concluded that the main communities during the 15th century were very similar to that of the present. Ethnobotanical data of about 100 species were registered. The 90% of the plant used were native. A 63% of the native plants were used as medicinals, while 24 % were used as edible and flavoring plants, and the last 26 % used as fuel, dye and constructional resources. Lastly, several botanical macroremains were recovered from different locations of El Shincal. The main ones were:- seeds and endocarps from native species such as Prosopis flexuosa, Prosopis chilensis, and Geoffroea decorticans, - crops, particularly grains and cobs of Zea mays and cotyledons of Phaseolus vulgaris and Ph. lunatus, - also a large number of wood pieces were recovered and are being identified. To sum up, these studies carried out at El Shincal showed that their environment should have provided a great variety of vegetable resources during the Inka period. Also, it is evident that even when agriculture was an important activity during this period, wild vegetables like Prosopis sp. and Geoffroea sp. also seemed to have played a significant role. It is thought that the edible use of Prosopis, in this site in particular, could have replaced the use of tubers as the main resource for the sustenance the local control system of the state. Key words: Inka, El Shincal, Archaeobotany, NOA