CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In this paper, we focus on the results of the archaeological research in the DiamanteValley, the southernmost limit of the expansion of agriculture, sedentary societies, andthe Inka empire (Figure 1). We conducted the first fieldwork in this area involvingsystematic random surface sampling, followed by test pits in open-air sites.Ouranalyses show changes in the settlement pattern of hunter-gatherer societies. Duringthe first part of the Late Holocene (3000-1500 years BP), hunter-gatherers used thehighlands and the piedmont seasonally. The archaeological evidence suggests acontext of resource abundance and frequent movements from one patch of resourcesto the other in both biogeographic units. During the last part of the Late Holocene(post-1500 BP period), the increased demography made hunter-gatherers stay longerin each patch. In this later period, we observe a settlement pattern that combines, onthe one hand, short-term particular tasks camps with shallow anthropogenic deposits,low artifactual density, richness, and diversity, and on the other hand, larger residentialbase camps with deep deposits, high artifactual density, richness, and diversity. Wealso find differences in the way that hunter-gatherers use the two biogeographic units.In the piedmont, we find short-term non-residential camps, and larger residentialcamps. Here we found versatile toolkits with abundant cores and cortex. In thehighlands, even though basalts are abundant there is a more significant amount ofnon-local raw materials, such as obsidians. Projectile points and scrapers dominate theassemblages, which might lead to task-specific activities such as hunting andprocessing of guanacos.From these results, we can affirm that Late Holocene huntergatherer groups from Diamante Valley had an excellent knowledge of the landscapeand took advantage of the different altitudinal gradients´ different resources with anorganized settlement pattern.

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