Dunes, hills, waterholes, and saltpeter beds: attractives for human populations in Dry Pampa Subregion

BERÓN MÓNICA ALEJANDRA

Mendoza

Congreso; IV Southern Desserts Conference; 2014

Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

Desert environments have generally been considered unsuitable places for the development of human communities. However, archaeological research shows that they have been intensively populated and traveled landscapes. These environments share common characteristics (scarcity of surface water, desert vegetation, high evapo-transpiration, water imbalance, among others). But archaeological investigations account for the variability of both desert environments, and social trajectories of their populations. Also, ethnoarchaeological observations in worldwide deserts (Kalahari, Australia, etc.) have provided interesting perspectives of modes of organization and behavior of the people who inhabit these spaces.In Dry Pampa (southwest of La Pampa province, Argentina), the distribution and availability of fresh water is the main variable for spatial organization of prehispanic populations. While the chroniclers and travelers considered this region as one of the most hostile crossings of pampean environment, the crossroads of Indian trails or rastrilladas pointed, articulated and connected places that mitigated its hostility, such as dune fields, springs, hill ranges, natural pools, temporary or permanent ponds. It is around these reservoirs that prehispanic human activity concentrations are recorded, sometimes ephemeral, in other of recurrent use.In Lihué Calel and Sierra Chica hill ranges i.e., the geomorphology enables the establishment of a more favorable and moist microclimate than the semiarid adjacent areas, leading to the existence of numerous waterholes, some standing permanently in the area. In other cases, as in the Curacó Basin, the availability of abundant and permanent water springs gave rise to a continuous or recurrent occupation. Eastern Pampa province concentrates small permanent or temporary pools, surrounded by dunes, where signs of human settlement are abundant. Furthermore there are several areas covered by edible salt deposits, which were a major pull factor for human groups from different origin. The chronological distribution of radiocarbon dates indicates an early colonization of the southern end of this large territory (ca 8600 yr BP), a gap of information between ca. 6500 and 5500yr BP (ca. 6000-5000 according to radiocarbon ages), and a re- colonization from 5000 yr BP onwards. This gap has been attributed to different causes, one of which was the alternating periods of increased aridity, which produced the absence of archaeological records as a result of a change in human strategies, in response to changing conditions in the regional structure of resources. Actually, it is mainly the intense wind and deflation action that affects the status of archaeological evidence in the area, which mostly appear on the surface of the ground. Thus the archaeological materials were exposed, either never underwent burial processes. Consequently, these significant environmental dynamics have produced a fragmentary archaeological record. Anyway it is possible to discuss the differential organizational patterns recorded alongside this particular environment.