Managing environmental diversity in the eastern foothills of the Andes: Pre-Columbian agrarian landscapes in the El Alto-Ancasti mountain range

MELÉNDEZ ANA SOLEDAD; ZUCCARELLI VERÓNICA; TROMP MONICA ; ROBERTS PATRICK; MARCOS N. QUESADA

World Archaeology

Taylor & Francis

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2022

1470-1375

In this paper we review the growing evidence of anthropogenic landscapes present inthe semi-deciduous tropical forest biomes of eastern NW Argentina, which haveremained relatively neglected in favour of arid to semi-arid western Andean regions.The evidence gathered in de El Alto-Ancasti provides an important case study wheremultidisciplinary methodologies have been applied to sites that document theemergence and variability in food production strategies across the eastern Andeanforests and grasslands of NW Argentina. Archaeological survey has found the region tobe relatively unique in an NW Argentina context in terms of its preservation of precolonialsettlement, farming landscapes, and social and political change with culturalmaterials spanning from ca.1700 yr BP to the present day. We discuss evidence offarming structures from archaeological surveys, plant management from phytolithanalysis, and the tempo and nature of settlement from archaeological excavationsavailable from a variety of sites in the El Alto Ancasti mountain range. We suggest thatthe communities that inhabited this region during the first millennium AD (ca. 1500-1000 BP) established a strategy of ?overlapping patchworks? of food production(Zimmerer 1999) that were able to contend with considerable seasonal variability.Through the use of cross-channelling, low river areas, erosion control techniques andthe establishment of mesothermal crops, including maize, legumes, and tubers, throughout the region, we argue that these societies adopted flexible strategies to adaptto life in a region prone to climatic change.