Arsenical copper objects and agropastoralist societies in the Southern Puna of Argentina: New perspectives on metallurgy of the second millennium BP in the south-central Andes Objetos de cobre arsenical y sociedades agropastoriles en la Puna Meridional argentina: Nuevas perspectivas sobre la metalurgia del segundo milenio aP en los Andes centro sur

BABOT, PILAR; GONZALEZ BARONI, LUCIA G.; BECERRA, MARÍA FLORENCIA

Latin American Antiquity

Cambridge University Press

Año: 2023 vol. 34 p. 295 - 313

1045-6635

We perform the first compositional, morphological, and contextual analysis of metal objects from the Southern Puna of Argentina (1430-2070 BP). Our analysis adds to the knowledge of the south-central Andean copper metallurgy by looking at a region outside of the main productive centers of this technology. Unalloyed copper and arsenical and lead-arsenical copper alloys with a variety of minority elements that correspond to different ores and, potentially, different production places within the south-central Andes are identified by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEMEDS). We argue that the metal would have circulated long distances on different routes within the framework of social networks that linked areas at different heights on both Andean slopes. The Southern Puna constitutes a node in this circulation during the Middle period when metal objects were integrated into domestic rituals of foundation and closure by the co-resident group connected to the agropastoralist annual cycle, through which the domestic animals would be propitiated and the territory would be claimed.