Economy and Camelids in the prehispanic agropastoral societies of Antofagasta de la Sierra (Argentine Puna) (ca. 3000-500 years BP)

DANIEL OLIVERA; JENNIFER GRANT

Burgos

Congreso; XVII World UISPP Congress; 2014; 2014

Fundacion Atapuerca

3.South American camelids have occupied a central role in the economic, social and ritual lifeways of ancient Andean hunter-gathers, herders and farmers, being the only large herd mammals domesticated in the Americas. Their domestication is especially important for highlands areas such as the Argentine Southern Puna where critical resources, water, grass, fertile soils, etc. are limited for both humans and animals. When interpreting ancient productive economies it is crucial to differentiate between the presence of wild (Vicugna vicugna and Lama guanicoe) and domestic (Lama glama) camelids in faunal assemblages. This is because the predominance of certain resource acquisition strategies or the presence/absence of some of these strategies could have had repercussions on the logistical organization of the groups. It has been an accepted fact that the expansion of agriculture during the late Prehispanic period had a major impact on group organization. Yet, it is likewise evident that herding and hunting also played an important, though still unclear, role during this period. Given this uncertainty and with the purpose of further understanding human-camelid relationships our aim here is to compare and contrast the use tendencies of these animals in agropastoral societies from Antofagasta de la Sierra (Argentine Puna) during the Late Holocene ca. 3000 to 500 years BP. Our approach highlighted and evaluated different zooarchaeological indicators such as: size variation observed in camelids (osteometry), their assignment to age categories and different indices of skeletal element abundance (MAU, MNE, PBE). These indicators were applied across a series of different type-sites, distributed across different ecological zones in the region, the results of which were then set against the paleoenvironmental data for the Late Holocene of the area. Results indicate that wild camelid hunting was important throughout this whole period, even if its characteristics and intensity varied, with an important peak during the latter part of this timescale. Furthermore, throughout this time, the pastoralist evidence shows a change in type of llama from a more generalized form ca. 3000 to 1000 years BP providing meat, fiber and transport, to a more specialized form for the period after this. In essence, over these ca. 2500 years highlands societies experienced an intensely important and crucial relation with both wild and domestic camelids, although the essential characteristics of this relationship changed over time.