ISES   20394
INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE ESTUDIOS SOCIALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Regionalization processes in the high altitude desert of Northwestern Argentina during Middle to Late Holocene
Autor/es:
HOCSMAN, SALOMÓN
Lugar:
Uco
Reunión:
Congreso; 4th Southern Deserts Conference; 2014
Institución organizadora:
Laboratorio de Paleoecología Humana, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo
Resumen:
A process of
increasing regionalization based on spatio-temporal patterning in flaked stone
artifact assemblages in the high altitude desert of Argentine Northwest during
Middle to Late Holocene (5500-2500 BP) is analyzed. Lithic materials
proceed from Antofagasta de la Sierra (Catamarca), in Southern Puna and Inca
Cueva-El Aguilar (Jujuy), in Northern Puna. Published data from the Puna of Jujuy and Salta provinces are also
considered.
Local
archaeological sequences involve, among other issues, a decline in residential
mobility, use of smaller-sized
territories, wild and domesticated animal and plant resources exploitation and
non local biotic and abiotic resource procurement. It is highlighted that at
this moment important socio-economic changes related to the emergence of
productive activities occurred in the region.
There are some regional congruencies on, for example, the
decline in bifacial thinning, the increase in the role of obsidian in the
manufacture of projectile points and the ubiquity of some particular flaked
stone tools as morphologically very specific cutters or very specific projectile
points. Nevertheless, differences between the Northern and the Southern parts
of the Puna are very strong in both technological and typological terms. Both
the Northern Puna and the Southern Puna exhibit several different stemmed and
un-stemmed projectile points and hafted knives. Also, Northern Puna is
characterized by the presence of blade technology, that is completely absent in
the South. In fact, blade tools are exclusive from the North.
Differences in
stone artifact assemblage composition are assumed as due to economic
intensification, increase in sedentism, environmental change and/or social
factors. The interaction of those factors
on spatio-temporal variability in artifact assemblage structure is discussed
here.