Mother Earth: soil and people relationships during the prehispanic period (Northwest Argentina)

SAMPIETRO VATTUONE, M. M.; L. NEDER; J. ROLDÁN; M. A. VATTUONE

World Archaeology

Routledge

Año: 2008 vol. 40 p. 190 - 205

0043-8243

The use of geoscience data is each time more important for archaeological research. From the more radical perspective, geoarchaeology could be understood as a way of make archaeology where the application of any method, technique, concept or knowledge of geosciences is promoted in order to solve an archaeological problem. On this framework, the objective of this contribution is to establish the relationship among agricultural soils, lands and cultic behaviour. We consider that soils, as they were modified by humans, contain key information for the reconstruction of past behaviour linked to super structural beliefs, not necessarily visible through the conventional material record. On this sense, the manipulation of lands and soils in Andean region represents the unification of ritual activities and beliefs oriented to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) with productive behaviours. On this case study, we present the obtained results of a prehispanic agricultural settlement from the first millennia of our era (Northwest Argentina), together with the material record related to the agricultural symbolic universe, and the evidence of a strong scheme of land categorization and utilization reflected through land use preferences.