Geoarchaeology of La Ciénega valley. Tucumán – Argentina

IACULLO, A.; M.M. SAMPIETRO VATTUONE; L. NEDER DEL VALLE; J. BUSNELLI

Posdam - Alemania

Congreso; 19. Geowissenschaftliches Lateinamerika - Kolloquium; 2005

The La Ciénega valley is an intermontane valley of reduced dimentions at nothwest of Tucumán province, Argentina. It has 15 km2 of surface and it is located between 2500 and 2800 masl of altitude. This area is between 65º38’ and 65º41’ S and 26º45’ and 26º49’ W.             The area is formed by two basins (La Ciénega and La puerta rivers) and their affluents.             The purpose of this research is to determine the geomorphological units of the valley, and the relationship between these units and the distribution of archaeological structures.             Thematic maps were done (lithology, geomorphology, morphodynamic, and archaeology) by photointerpretation of aerial photographs (1:10,000). After that soil profile descriptions were made taking into account the geomorphological and archaeological characteristics. Archaeological structures were classified according to their superficial characteristics, and related with the geomorphological detected units.             We conlude that in La Ciénega valley all archaeological structures belong to Formative period (500 bC to 800 aC), they have similar stylistic characteristics, they are concentrated in the piedmont. Finally their distribution is clustered with internal regular order.