Environmental trends between 2400 and 1200 BP in Barrancas, Argentinean Puna: impacts on local resource variability and socioeconomic organization

OXMAN, BRENDA I.; PIROLA, MALENA; BUSTOS, SABRINA; MORALES, MARCELO R.; TCHILINGUIRIAN, PABLO; ORGEIRA, MA. JULIA

GEOARCHAEOLOGY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2020 vol. 35 p. 243 - 257

0883-6353

This paper presents a multiproxy analysis?geomorphology, organic matter, andcarbonate content, diatoms, pollen, and magnetic properties of sediments?of theBarrancas Pueblo profile, located in Barrancas, Jujuy, Argentina (S 23°18′08,7; W 66°05′15,2; 3666 m.a.s.l.) to explore local environmental change over the last few millennia. This study is part of a broader investigation of the environmental conditions that facilitated and/or triggered the development of a mixed herding and hunting economic strategy during the late Holocene. The results suggest ongoing local moisture availability for most of the late Holocene; between 2400 and 1500 BP there was a stable, low energy environment that supported a vegetated floodplain, resulting in high availability of pasture and water. However, throughout most of the studied period, there were punctual arid episodes and erosion of the river catchment.High environmental variability post‐3000 cal BP could have put a premium onstrategies to reduce the risk associated with resource unpredictability, such aseconomic specialization and intensification and storage practices designed to control and mitigate resource variability. This process could have ultimately lead to the consolidation of the Andean pastoralist way of life ca. 3000?2500 BP.