Identifying pre-Hispanic water storages in agricultural areas of south-central Andes through diatom evidence

GRANA, LORENA; LANZELOTTI, SONIA; ARÉVALO, VICTORIA; TESIO, ALVARO YAMIL; MAIDANA, NORA IRENE

Archaeometry

Wiley Online Library

Año: 2022

1475-4754

In the Andes, there are several pre-Hispanic irrigationnetworks with structures destined for water storage.However, it has not been widely discussed inarchaeological research. This is probably due to theirbeing difficult to identify. The aim of this study is toexplore the use of diatom assemblage analysis as amethodological tool suitable to help in the identification and characterization of these ancient hydraulicstructures. We analyzed two archaeological structuresinterpreted as water reservoirs from north-westernArgentina (EH1 in Antofagasta de la Sierra andU-88R1 in Yocavil) and compared them to currentreservoirs. The diatom species composition and thechanges in the dominant ecological groups in the studied structures highlight different periods of hydraulicbehavior. EH1 contained and stored water, but therewere periods of time in which there was a lack of use orabandonment of the structure. However, the U88-R1structure does not have diatom evidence of containingstanding water for a prolonged time but presence ofwet soils. Thus, the structure could have been used forother water management strategies. The results showthat diatom analysis is a methodological tool with ahigh potential to study ancestral hydrotechnologies