Ethnobotany and paleoethnobotany in the Andes of South America: reconstructing the history of biocultural spaces and species from local traditional knowledge

LEMA, VERÓNICA; POCHETTINO M. L.; CAPPARELLI A.; LAMBARÉ D. A.; LÓPEZ M. L.; PETRUCCI N. & PÉREZ M.L.

Congreso; 14th. Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology Ethnobiology in Mountain Communities; 2014

This presentation aims to bring a synthesis of the advances made by our research team in understanding the generation of biocultural spaces and species, as well as food, in the Andes of South America, from ethnobotanical and paleoethnobotanical approaches. Fieldwork with local aboriginal and peasant communities has been carried out mainly in the Northwest area of Argentina, but also in Southwest Bolivia (Fig. 1) Ethnobotanical studies had two main objectives: on the one hand, to realize a comprehensive study of pre-harvest plant management practices and, in the other, to understand post-harvest trajectories of plants in order to make food. These studies were related to native and introduced species and also to wild, weedy, cultivated and domesticated plant communities. Plant processing was understood in the frame of post harvest systems, including the recording of plant by-products and wastes. All this background was applied to the interpretation of archaeobotanical remains recovered in archaeological sites of the area in order to track the history of techniques and practices: their presence, transformation and complementation with other activities through time. PRE HARVEST PRACTICES: SPACES AND SPECIES Areas of cultivation are situated in intermountain slopes and bottom of valleys. Cultivated plots for human consumption (sembraderos, rastrojos; Fig. 2) can be composed by several local and foreign species (potatoes, corn, lima beans, peaches, apples, peppers) or ?less commonly- by only maize (chacra) or quinoa. A multi cropping complex is also present in orchards (huerto, quinta). In all cases, local landraces are numerous [5,6]. In all these cultivated areas wild or weedy specimens can be found. Among the first ones are taxa genetically related to the crops or not, which are tolerated, fostered or sown by local breeders. Among the second ones are specimens escaped from cultivation and tolerated in the plots, as well as those which correspond to a previous cycle of cultivation. Cultivated and weedy specimens also thrive in channels carved in the earth to irrigate the plots (acequias), and reach the river floodplain (playa) (Fig. 3), but not the upper areas of the hills (cerro). On the contrary wild plants of both, playa and cerro, can be found in rastrojos, huertos, or sembraderos. The network of relationships linking humans and non humans through a sociality based in the interchange of efforts through care, reciprocity, agreements and payments is called ?mutual nurturing? (crianza mutua) [4]. In this model, several breeders are recognized besides humans, and non domesticated plants have breeders similarly to domesticated ones. This model can be considered as part of a multinaturalistic ontology[3,11] where a continuity among the interiorities of different entities (such as plants, animals, hills, humans, earth or water) consisting in the capability of display energy, exists together with a discontinuity in their bodies or externalities (morphology, behaviour, health and diseases). In this sense, mutual nurturing can be considered as a social relationship where effort and energy are exchanged, mediated by the particular bodies or ?natures? of the subjects[7]. All entities breed someone and are bred by someone; this is part of a continuous interiority. Plants can be breed by humans, by the hill (cerro) or by animals like the fox. But they also nurture humans, animals, their own children and other plants. Plants can also leave human breeders and be nurtured by a non human entity. The discontinuities are marked by the breeders and not by spatiality (vg. wild areas versus domestic ones), so one can recognize who is breeding a plant (a human or a hill, for instance) by their externality or body. For Andean people, there are no wild, untamed, entities. Plants move among breeders, through spaces whose boundaries are porous; they mix up and generate hybrids swarms in what have been called wild-weedy-crop complexes[1] Pacha (earth/time) is one of the main breeders nurturing humans, plants and animals. This is a powerful entity which has to be fed on August since she is hungry in this month and can eat their feeders too. In the Andes, the landscape is a commensal in a inter-phagocytosis sociology[10]. Also the dead relatives must be fed on 1 st November when their souls return to the world of the living ones[10] (Fig. 4) POST HARVEST PRACTICES: FROM TAXA TO FOOD Peasant community of El Shincal (ANW). Prosopis spp. in bushy formations near households and cultivated plots The fruit of Prosopis is an indehiscent drupaceous legume (pod), which has a more or less thick epicarp, a pulpy, sweet mesocarp and several endocarps with one seed each. Dried pods are prepared into flour by grinding. Refined flour (mesocarp) is used to make a sweet bread called ?patay?, unrefined flour (mesocarp + endocarps) is used to make beverages (non-alcoholic ?añapa? and alcoholic ?aloja?). Processing for beverages include soaking the flour for several hours. In the case of ?aloja? the juice is fermented and hot water, instead of cold, can be used for flour maceration. Also chewed pods can be added to the maceration bulk [2] After processing: diagnostic features in discarded residues[2] Grinding/flours: endocarps of unrefined flour with fissures and/or fractures and traces of mesocarp and fragments of epicarp in their surfaces. Refined flour: absence of mesocarp traces, high proportion of fissures in the endocarps and seed testa. Beverages: epicarp directly attached to the endocarp. Mesocarp produces a black patina on the surfaces of the endocarp. Small fragments of flour that were suspended in water became stuck to endocarp surfaces after drying. Chewed pod residues: fine threads of mesocarp heavily twisted. --- Villa Candelaria (SBH) quechua speaking farmers cultivating domestic quinoa (C. quinoa var. quinoa), presence of free-living C.quinoa var. melanospermun (?ajara?) in cultivated plots Quinoa grain: alveolate pericarp adhered to the seed. Starchy perisperm. Episperm. Peripheral embryo. Grain-processing practices related with enhancement (for reduction of saponins, a toxic metabolite) and consumption habits. Enhancement for quinoa to be eaten as whole grain, in soups or as ?pitu? (toasted refined flour) include: parching, treading (grinding with feets), winnowing, rubbing and drying, with differences in intensity and number of times that each step takes. Quinoa to be eaten as whole grain or in soups include washing, while quinoa for ?pitu? include soaking[8] Processed grains: pericarp more or less brittle and brownish, preservation of pericarp fragments or its absence. Quinoa as whole grain/ soups: perisperm of flourlike appearance, absence of embryos in different percentages. Grains for ?pitu?: persistence of embryos is frequent; soaking contributes to the separation of the testa, which can be wrinkled or folded, and a translucent (vitreous/pearly) appearance of the grain[8]. POST HARVEST IN THE ANW ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD: FOOD FOR THE DEAD ONES Puente del Diablo (10.000 BP ; 2450?1450 BP) and Huachichocana III (10,000 BP up to the European conquest) archaeological sites are rock shelters with funerary and domestic occupations. Prosopis post-harvest processing: grinding and ?añapa? preparations were detected in domestic and funerary contexts between 3000 and 1450 BP at both sites. A diversification of processing techniques was recorded through time. In the case of Huachichocana III, the presence of chewed pods associated to endocarps with black patina (hot water ?aloja? processing) is exclusive of the Inka period and was detected in a burial of a domestic Argentinian lesser grison (Galictis cuja) [2]. Las Champas archaeological site (ca. 750 BP) is a burial situated in a river terrace. Associated were recovered C. quinoa var. melanospermum grains together with C. maxima ssp. maxima (squash) seeds. ?Ajara? grains had the pericarp detached from the episperm and with damage features diagnostic of the enhacement processing, also the testa was wrinkled indicating soaking or boiling. Some grain fragments were attached to the squash seeds surfaces[9]. PAST AGROSYSTEMS DYNAMICS IN THE ANW ANW: archaeobotanical remains of domestic taxa have been always recovered together with their wild counterparts and ?intermediate? forms in the same archaeological contexts (sites from ca. 2500 BP to 700 BP), suggesting the presence of wild-weedy-crop complexes in the past. Intermediate forms have quantitative characters combining those recorded in modern populations of wild and domestic forms, or which are novel regarding these last ones. These ?in between? (intermediate) morphotypes may be representing hybrid or weedy populations probably cultivated and harvested together with their domestic counterparts[6]. WHO BRED WHO IN THE PAST? Huachichocana aboriginal community (ANW): ?papa criolla? (potatoe, Solanum tuberosum) bred by humans and ?papa yuta? (Solanum tarijense) bred by the hill. Both can thrive in cultivated plots and are locally recognized due to their morphology and properties; would we be able to recognize both types in the archaeobotanical record? Nor morphological or biometrical characters of tubers and starch grains are useful to distinguish potatoes bred by humans or by non humans, making the nurturing differences invisible in the archaeobotanical record (both macro and micro remains). DISCUSSION Exploring the ?mutual nurturing? model in local communities of the Andes as an heuristic tool to understand modern and past management practices has been quite interesting. This could explain the low incidence of homogenizing selective pressures in crop populations during the cultural development of the area, the predomination of cultivated plants over domesticated ones, and the presence of hybrid and weedy specimens. These practices could not have been restricted to a horticultural strategy, being the reflection of ontology similar to the one in modern mutual nurturing. In the inter- phagocytosis practices involved in this model, food is essential in nurture and being nurtured. Ethnobotanical studies with an archaeobotanical application allowed us to detect the practice of feeding non human entities (such as the dead ones) as a practice with a long history in the ANW. CONCLUSIONS The linkage between ethno and paleoethnobotanical studies has allowed us not only to reconstruct the historical background of traditional practices, but also to employ local frameworks of knowledge as valid theories to look into the past and get an enhanced understanding of how biocultural spaces and species became what they are in one sector of the South American Andes, a place where humans and non human entities have been breeding and feeding each other during centuries.