Vaquerías: A techno-stylistic study regarding the earliest polychrome pottery in the Argentine Northwest

PEREYRA DOMINGORENA, LUCAS; DE FEO, MARÍA EUGENIA; BUGLIANI MARÍA FABIANA

ANTIQUITY

Cambridge University Press

Año: 2020

0003-598X

AbstractVaquerías is a polychrome formative pottery style broad geographic distribution in Northwestern Argentina (NOA) but meagerly represented in sites. Their presence is regularly mentioned, but few authors have advanced detailed characterization of its distinctiveness in each area. This paper contributed to this by reviewing the information and interpretations reached to date and providing new evidence from two sectors of NOA: Quebrada del Toro (Salta) and southern Cajon Valley (Catamarca).Pottery materials recovered there were stylistic and technological analyzed, which included the definition of morphological and iconographic attributes and petrographic analytical techniques.In the sectors considered, Vaquerías is present in domestic and discard contexts in villagers sites, although in Quebrada del Toro as well appears in burial contexts. The chronology goes from the fourth century B.C. until the end of the first millennium D.C. Although both ensembles share attributes that allow to define a stylistic and morphological unity, there is also considerable variability in relation to pastes composition. There are also differences in the way in which this style behave in each sector respect to the local pottery styles. This information is put (placed) into the context of the questions about the technological choices, circulation and social interaction styles in the Northwestern Argentina during the Formative.