EARLY PERIOD: VILLAGE LIFE AND EXOTIC GOODS

Northwestern Argentina was characterized during the Early Period by the proliferation of sedentary village societies (Albeck 2000; Gonzalez 1977; Gonzalez and Perez 1972; Nunez Regueiro 1974; Tarrago 1996; Tarrago and Scattolin 1999; Raffino 1977, 1988). These small-scale village societies occupied the different subareas of northwestern Argentina, from the high altitude punas to the highland valleys to the low-lying warmer valleys of the

Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell.

Springer, New York, 2008

Figure 30.1. Map of Northwestern Argentina showing location of archaeological sites mentioned in the text. 1. Alamito; 2. Tafi; 3. El Mollar; 4. Yutopan; 5. La Cienaga; 6. Condorhuasi; 7. Saujil; 8. Laguna Blanca; 9. Tebenquiche; 10. Loma Alta; 11. Morro de las Espinillas; 12. Campo Colorado; 13. Las Cuevas; 14. Cerro El Dique; 15. Estancia Grande; 16. Antumpa; 17. La Rinconada; 18. Pucarade Tilcara; 19. Juella; 20. Los Amarillos; 21. Yacoraite; 22. La Huerta; 23. Penas Blancas; 24. Tastil; 25. La Paya; 26. Las Pailas; 27. Valdez; 28. Rincon Chico; 29. Quilmes; 30. Loma Rica de Shiquimil; 31. Famabalasto; 32. Azampay. (Juan Leoni and Felix Acuto)

Figure 30.2. Chronological chart for the Quebradas and Valleys subarea of Northwestern Argentina, indicating archaeological cultures and/or sites for each of the periods discussed in the text. (Juan Leoni and Felix Acuto)

Eastern slopes of the Andes (Figure 30.1). They were largely based on agricultural (com, potato, beans, pumpkin, quinoa) and herding (llamas) subsistence practices, the emphasis on each varying according to the environmental zones in which they were located, and occasionally complemented by hunting and gathering. Ceramic, textile, and metallurgical production developed during these times, reaching in some cases very high standards of manufacture and aesthetic quality. Exchange networks (presumably long-distance llama caravans as well as short-distance direct exchanges), through which both quotidian and sumptuary goods as much as ideas and people circulated, seem to have kept these societies tightly interconnected, though no centralizing political authorities apparently developed during this period. It is generally agreed that these communities were, for the most part, internally homogeneous with little social differentiation or political centralization, though more pronounced hierarchy and inequality seem to develop by the late part of this period (see Nunez Regueiro and Tartusi 1996-97).

The typical (though not unique) Early Period landscapes were characterized by the location of hamlets and houses in direct physical association with the main productive resources: agricultural lands, water, and pastures. In this way, daily domestic activities and agricultural practices were fully integrated, both carried out in close physical proximity and well within visible and even audible range (on the other hand, herding practices commonly required spatial separation from the habitation nuclei).

Characteristic Early Period villages were generally situated on alluvial terraces and cones, valley floors or low-sloped foothills. They comprised a small number of individual houses or nuclei of small groups of conjoined rooms located within agricultural plots, which in some cases were walled, and separated from each other by short distances (e. g., Cerro El Dique, Salta (Raffino 1977); Loma Alta, Catamarca (Scattolin 1990) (Figure 30.3) [Note 1]. Residential units comprising groups of rooms around a central patio are common in the southern highland valleys and in the western part of the area, suggesting social units larger than those inhabiting the isolated houses that constitute dispersed hamlets more common in the western puna and northern valleys (Ottonello and Lorandi 1987: 68-69). These residential bases were commonly complemented by smaller dependent sites located in other environmental zones, which served specific purposes such as herding, hunting, raw material procurement, rock painting, funerary practices and other rituals. Typical Early Period villages seem not to follow (except for the conspicuous Alamito centers) an obvious spatial ordering. Residential and agricultural compounds generally were built without a uniform orientation or set distances between them. This apparently haphazard site plan most probably responded to the inhabitants’ knowledge of locality and the needs of agricultural practices (see Robin 2002: 252-255 for a similar case).

Productive activities seem to have been carried out mainly at a household level, and along with domestic practices constituted—given their physical spatial integration—the focus of the social construction of space and experience of everyday life in the Early Period. In other words, while some household members tended to the crops in the fields situated around the habitations, others cooked, manufactured lithic and other tools, spun wool, wove, etc., either in the houses, the space directly around the individual houses, or in the central patios that connected several habitations. These spaces certainly constituted the focus of Early Period life, having a crucial role in the social, economic, and ideological construction and reproduction of these societies. Even more complex activities, such as the production of metal artifacts (e. g., Yutopian site, Cajon Valley, Catamarca [Gero and Scattolin 1994]) and other elaborate goods such as fine funerary ceramics and lithic sculpture, might have been carried out in this type of locale [Note 2].

Figure 30.3. Site plans of Early Period villages. a. Loma Alta, Catamarca (redrawn from Scattolin 1990: figs. 5 and 6); b. Cerro El Dique, Salta. (Redrawn from Raffino 1988: fig. 4.1).

Varied ritual practices were carried out within the household spaces as well. Thus, burials, generally consisting of direct primary interments with infants sometimes placed in urns and accompanied by various grave goods, were located either in the patios or inside the rooms. This probably reinforced the integration and autonomy of these social units and symbolized their continuity through time. Specialized segregated cemeteries are not common but have been found in the Hualfin Valley (Gonzalez 1977: 153), Upper Calchaqui Valley (Tarrago 1996:109-110), Tebenquiche and Laguna Blanca sites in the puna (Raffino 1988: 152), among others, and seem to represent different conceptions of the role and place of the dead in social life as well as of the organization of residential groups. Other household rituals included the consumption of hallucinogenic substances like the cebil (Anadenanthera sp.), smoked with ceramic and lithic pipes. In some cases (e. g., Tafi sites, Tucuman [Raffino 1988: 146], Tebenquiche, Catamarca [Haber 1996: 77-78]) stone menhirs with or without carved decoration located in the patios or close to the houses would have had ritual significance, either as religious images, kin group identity emblems, or ancestors’ representations, and were perhaps the focus of varied ceremonies.

Figure 30.4. Site plan of an Alamito culture ceremonial village, Campo del Pucara, Catamarca. (Redrawn from Raffino 1988: fig. 4.6).

The evidence for supra-household rituals is scant at present, and there is a general absence of communal public ceremonial or administrative architecture. Only a few examples of public architecture are known for this period and include a mound associated with several menhirs at El Mollar, Tucuman (Gonzalez and Nunez Regueiro 1960; Nunez Regueiro and Garcia Azcarate 1996) and the mound and symmetric platforms located at one extreme of each of the Alamito culture ceremonial villages (Nunez Regueiro 1998) (Figure 30.4). Individual residential compounds or unstructured and open areas close to the villages could have constituted loci for integrative community religious and political rituals in Early Period villages and hamlets, although no evidence exists for this at present.

Apparently, the construction of place in the Early Period was primarily centered around a strong emphasis on locality, which in turn provided a sense of belonging, collective identity, and cohesion (see Lovell 1998: 4). Common activities such as house building or agricultural work, as much as varied rituals and social practices constituted forms of creating and reproducing locality. While households seem to have constituted the base for economic, social and ideological reproduction in most Early Period societies (Haber 1996), sharing a common productive space fostered some degree of supra-household integration.

The proximity of houses and agricultural fields contributed to promoting a sense of community, or the participation of the households in a greater social and productive entity. The general lack of noticeably significant differences in house sizes or architectural techniques, as well as the general absence of imposing public or ceremonial structures, implies that an egalitarian communal ethos prevailed in these villages.

While seemingly autonomous, these villages were by no means isolated entities. Ample exchange networks interconnected them and ensured that a wide range of goods (both sumptuary and ordinary) and ideas circulated among them (Haber 1996; Nunez Regueiro 1998; Tarrago 1996). These exchange networks may have sown the seeds for increasing sociopolitical differentiation as they provided opportunities for both distributing and obtaining ideologically and economically valued objects. Metal artifacts and adornments, fine Cienaga (Willey 1971: fig. 4-17) and Condorhuasi style ceramics (Willey 1971: fig. 4-20), and other items were presumably distributed in this way over vast geographic extensions (Gonzalez 1977), and could have served to promote shared regional identities as much as to create differences within the Early Period villages. Households that produced and consumed these types of goods would have been in a vantage position to gain social status and political power within their communities. Similarly, the gradual monopolization of supra-household rituals and ceremonialism could have led to increasing degrees of sociopolitical differentiation within the communities. Nevertheless, the fact that a great proportion of these prestige items ended up as part of gravelots, eliminating them from the visible and active realm of life might indicate that the communal ethos was strong enough to successfully counterbalance trends toward inequality, at least for a while. Indeed, processes promoting social differentiation and hierarchy are most apparent in a group of valleys located in western Catamarca province, and lead ultimately to the rise of Aguada (see below), but parallel processes might have developed in other parts of the area as well.

While villages with the characteristics described above predominated in the area during this period, other types of landscape and space construction also existed. Although typical of the Late Period, densely conglomerated settlements located on high topographical features, separated from agricultural fields, seem to have antecedents in the Early Period. Sites like Yutopian (Cajon Valley, Catamarca) (Gero and Scattolin 1994) and Morro de las Espinillas (Santa Maria Valley, Catamarca) (Tarrago and Scattolin 1999) show this pattern and suggest that certain groups operated with radically different conceptions of social life and organization. Conspicuously planned sites of the Alamito culture (Campo del Pucara, Catamarca) show a rigid planning and were loaded with cosmological and social symbolism (Figure 30.4). Successively interpreted as villages and ceremonial centers (Nunez Regueiro 1998; Nunez Regueiro and Tartusi 1996-97), these sites remained, however, spatially and temporally limited, although they seem to have contributed to the later development of Aguada. In fact, Nunez Regueiro and Tartusi (1996-97) claim that Early Period Alamito ceremonial villages constituted the evolutionary watershed in northwestern Argentina. In their view, these places were the antecedent of Aguada ceremonial centers, initiating transformation of the religious sphere and interregional relationships. Indeed, during the Middle Period ceremonial centers became a familiar feature of the central and southern northwestern Argentina landscape.