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

MIGUEL A. GIARDINA; CLARA OTAOLA; FERNANDO FRANCHETTI

Orlando

Congreso; 81st, Annual Meeting. Society for American Archaeology; 2016

Society for American Archaeology

The archaeology from the Diamante River Valley, located in Mendoza, Argentina, has been carried out since the beginning of the seventies. Theinformation generated along these years was oriented in several study programs and was motivated by diverse research questions. Different kinds ofsurveys were done and very few data was published. Most of the archaeological information we have nowadays from this Valley comes from excavationsusing 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 theDiamante Valley, where three areas located in the highlands, the piedmont, and the lowlands were selected. The aim is to test differences and variability inthe use of the space and resources. In this paper, we will focus on our first challenge of this research program: integrating the background information wecompiled from previous archaeological investigations with the methodological approach we developed in our own distributional surveys.