NAA Analysis of Ambato Ceramics from the Southern Andes (Eastern Valleys of Catamarca and Tucumán, Argentina).

BERTOLINO, S.R.; A. LAGUENS; GLASCOCK M. D.; GIESSO, M.; BOULANGER M.

Orlando

Congreso; 81st Meeting Society for American Archaeology; 2016

Society for American Archaeology

During the first millennium AD, a series of valleys of northwestern Argentina were settled by Aguada communities. These societies occupied a large area covering a radius of 800km in many of the lower valleys (approx. 1200 to 2000 masl) and were characterized after 500 AD by increasing social differentiation, intensive agriculture and camelid pastoralism, large settlements with adobe, stone, tapia and other material dwellings and productive infrastructure (corrals), ritualistic warfare, elaborate bronze metallurgy, ceramics, textiles and other crafts. Aguada elements (textiles, etc.) were also found in north-central and northern Chilean sites. In pre-Inka times, the Aguada societies reached the highest levels of political /religious integration and craft specialization of northwestern Argentina, but it is unclear how the different communities were related to each other. Some of the earliest Aguada communities were found in the Ambato valley. Here we will explore the characteristics of an elaborate ceramic style, known as Ambato negro o gris inciso (incised grey or black Ambato), and its distribution in the eastern sectors of Aguada. This style is characterized by limited, standardized, forms; thin walls and elaborate polishing of the external surface, and the presence of a variety of incised/engraved motifs which include humans with weapons, as well as anthropomorphic/zoomorphic individuals. Ceremonial centers were built in Ambato, and other valleys of the provinces of Catamarca and La Rioja. These ceremonial sites could have been the centers of the different polities that formed the Aguada realm, all with their unique characteristics but overall similarities. The Ambato valley was the earliest center of Aguada ceremonialism and the focus of intensive archaeological research during the 1990s and early 2000s by archaeologists from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Laguens et al 2004). Two of the most important sites that were excavated were Bordo de los Indios (AMBI) and Piedras Blancas (AMPB), from were the first sherds were analyzed. In recent years a series of NAA analysis were conducted at the Missouri University Research Reactor on local clays and ceramic sherds of a wide range of sites in the eastern sectors of Aguada, all located in low altitudes. Preliminary results suggested that one type of ceramics (incised black) used one of the clays, and thus had a standardized production, with a wide distribution in the region around Ambato and to the East.Results of NAA of 107 grey and black incised Ambato and Ciénaga sherds, from the Ambato valley, the southwest of Tucumán, and the central valley of Catamarca are presented here. Decorated Ambato ceramics is present in all sites, both small and large, but in different proportions, which suggests that it was used by large segments of the population (Laguens 2004, 146). Once we identified a commonality of a source (then of unknown location), we decided to expand the sample to other areas to the south and east of Ambato, and we graciously counted with the collaboration of colleagues from the Universidad Nacional de Catamarca (Nestor Krystkautzky and Bárbara Manasse). These new results were correlated with clay samples of Ambato, Pomán and Andalgalá. Results continued to point to the use of one main source (AVRG), with wide distribution inside and outside the Ambato valley. In unequal social contexts, such as Aguada from Ambato, there could be restrictions to the access of clays and limitations and control over the circulation of certain manufactured goods. The first analysis was from 16 ceramic sherds from excavated contexts of the archaeological sites of Bordo de los Indios and Piedras Blancas, and a clay sample from Los Escobales, all from Department of Ambato. A second group of sherds was analyzed from Bordo de los Indios: AMBI07 to AMBI10.Fourteen clay samples were analyzed from several locations in the province of Catamarca from where Ambato ceramics were found (Ambato, Andalgalá, Pomán). Analysis was done in all of them by NAA, and in 10 of them by Xray difraction (Bertolino and Fabra 2003, Bertolino MS). Of the first Ambato clays to be analyzed two were red, and two were white. All are in the Sierra de La Graciana (see A in the map). The other two are from Humaya, in the Ambato sierra (red and yellow clays). Both varieties, as well as those from Andalgalá and Pomán, are used today by potters of the region, that reproduce Aguada ceramics. Saujil is from the Ambato valley. Two samples are from Andalgala, both have very high arsenic. Two samples are from Cerco de Palos, close to an archaeological site in Ambato. None of our samples match the Ambato Reference Group.