Costs of Acquiring Lithic Materials in High Altitude Environments (Northwestern San Juan Province, Argentina): A GIS-Based Evaluation

CASTRO, SILVINA; LUCERO, GUSTAVO; CORTEGOSO, VALERIA; MARSH, ERIK J.

Vancouver

Congreso; 82° reunión annual de la Society for American Archaeology; 2017

Based on geo-archaeological studies on the Argentine?Chilean border in the south central Andes, a method is proposed for ranking lithic sources based on the quality of the material, cost of accessibility, and location along movement routes. In the Upper Las Taguas river valley (northwestern San Juan Province, Argentina, 5500?3700 masl), 32,622 lithic artifacts from 30 sites were analyzed to study the variation in the use of seven lithic sources between 10,000 and 500 cal BP. A GIS analysis was done at the meso-scale. An anisotropic analysis revealed the effects of distance and slope on the cost of accessibility of each source. It is assumed that a landscape with severe topography limits the possibilities of natural corridors of movement. Human traffic along these corridors varies in intensity based on their connections as nodes and internodes. Based on least cost path calculations, the accessibility of each sources is ranked in terms of its distance to travel corridors and movement in intermodal spaces. Finally, based on detailed micro-scale analysis of the archaeological material and models at the meso-scale, a model is proposed to estimate the distance ranges and traveling days to the lithic sources involved in local and extra-regional sources.