POLLEN ANALYSIS OF PASTOS CHICOS: PALEOENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS DURING THE HOLOCENE IN THE DRY PUNA OF ARGENTINA

BRENDA OXMAN & YACOBACCIO HUGO DANIEL

Physical, chemical and biological markers in the Argetine archaeology: Theory, methods and applications

British Archaeological Reports, Archaeopress

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2014; p. 105 - 115

Historically, the models accounting the human colonization of the Puna were based on assumptions and broad generalizations about the environmental context in which human groups had developed. In this sense, the main objective of this paper is to characterize and precise the environmental scenario of the earliest human occupations in the Dry Puna of Argentina. For this purpose, we provide the results of the pollen analyses from different Early and Middle- Holocene profiles located in Pastos Chicos - Las Burras river basin (23° 40' S; 66° 25' W; 3890 m a.s.l.). The comparison with another sequence from the sedimentary profile located in Lapao ravine, Lapao 5 profile (23º 36´ S, 66º 36´ W; 3650 m a.s.l.), assists to understand the variability in the performance of the climate system in different temporal and spatial scales. These results show two paleoenvironmental moments: a) ~ 9300 - 7300 yr BP, a moist and stable period represented by a vegetation composed for grasses, and b) ~ 7300 - 6300 yr BP, a drier environment interrupted by a short-time events of moisture. The comparison with Lapao 5 sequence shows similar trends, although with some chronological discrepancies. More moisture events are recorded towards ~ 7700 yr BP; after this date and until the beginning of the Late Holocene, drier conditions were installed. Based on this information, the models proposed were evaluated and new hypothesis are generated about the subsistence patterns of hunter-gatherers