Human-Environment System Change and Stability in the Farming/Hunter-Gatherer Transition

ADOLFO GIL; MARÍA LAURA SALGÁN; MARÍA PAZ POMPEI; GUSTAVO NEME; NURIA ANDREA SUGRANES

Albuquerque

Encuentro; 84Th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; 2019

Society for American Archaeology

Central Western Argentina shows during historical times a surprising mosaic of human strategies, ranging from populations with domestic plants and animals in one extreme, to populations focused on wild resources in the other. In general, this variation was associated with more sedentary and dense populations opposed to more mobile and scattered populations. Using radiocarbon SPD as a demographic proxy, we explore differences in demographic trajectories in different areas of the region and how variable they were during the last 3000 years. The results show that the incorporation and spread of domesticates was associated with a peak in human demography and that the hunter gatherer archaeological record suggests changes in its organization.