Grinding, processing, settlement and mobility in hunter-gatherers of the Southern Puna of Argentina (ca. 7000-3200 AÑOS AP)

BABOT, MARÍA DEL PILAR

Hunter-gatherers from a high altitude desert. People of the Salt Puna (Northwest Argentina) (E. Pintar, ed.)

Archaeopress-BAR Archaeological Series

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2014; p. 25 - 39

Grinding artifacts are one of the most common elements for processing in the prehispanic sequence of the northwestern Argentina. For a long time they were considered as part of a technology characteristic of agropastoralist groups, but today we know that the practice of grinding was already present among the hunter-gatherers of the early Holocene, and that it increased in the Middle Holocene. We also know that since its inception the option of grinding was not unique to plant processing and that, as a processing stage, it was at the intersection of multiple paths of goods on their way to be treated for different use or consumption purposes Various studies conducted over the last decade in relation to grinding tools from Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the northwest of the Province of Catamarca, in the area of the Southern Puna of Argentina, provided an important part of the information that prompted the change in perspective regarding the practice of grinding. In particular, the studies that are taken up in this paper, which are related to grinding in hunter-gatherer contexts of the area, allowed to update discussions related to a series of guiding questions on the social processes and site-level processes that took place during the Middle and Late Holocene, which are also addressed in other chapters in this volume