The Middle Period is characterized by the rise of a distinctive stylistic and social entity known as Aguada [Note 3]. Its developmental focus seems to have been the Ambato Valley in Catamarca (Gordillo 1990, 1992-94; Perez et al. 1996-97) (Figure 30.1) from which it
Spread over a vast part of central and southern northwestern Argentina, including the southern Calchaqui Valley to northern San Juan province, but without affecting the areas of the former Tafi and Alamito cultures, the Quebrada de Humahuaca and other northern valleys.
In these latter areas the typical village way of life described for the Early Period seems to have persisted more or less unchanged. Aguada objects, on the other hand, reached as far as San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, through long distance exchange networks.
Aguada was originally defined as an archaeological culture on the basis of a diagnostic style of fine ceramics that includes several variants (see, e. g., Willey 1971: fig. 4-37), the most characteristic of which has white incised motifs over a black or gray polished background. Aguada’s complex iconography seems to derive from Cienaga style ceramics of the Early Period (Willey 1971: fig. 4-17), and is dominated by the thematic association of felines, warriors, and trophy heads. Ceramics, metal ornaments (copper, bronze, and gold; see Willey 1971: fig. 4-38) and wooden artifacts commonly display representations of warriors/priests frontally depicted wearing elaborated headdresses, holding axes and darts or sacrificing captives; trophy heads; and a range of feline-related motifs, including jaguars and anthropomorphized felines (Figure 30.5).
Spatial variations within this generalized style soon became evident and led Gonzalez (1977) to identify three different regional modalities (Eastern, Western, and Southern), with specific characteristics. A later reinterpretation by Nunez Regueiro (1974: 179-181) argued that Aguada actually represented a time of regional integration when a religious
Figure 30.5. Characteristic Aguada iconography. a. Human wearing a feline mask and holding an arrow; b. Feline; c. Felines; d. Warrior with elaborate headdress and feline costume, holding arrows and a trophy head. (A and D redrawn from Gordillo and Kush 1987: 43, 49; B and C redrawn from Gonzalez 1961-64: figs. 3.3., 3.4 - scale not provided in the original).
Cult materialized in the distinctive iconography spread over northwestern Argentina, unifying a wide range of village societies but without significantly changing the sociopolitical organization of those groups. This latter idea has in turn been reevaluated and it is currently argued that Aguada represents a stage characterized by the existence of theocratic chiefdom-level polities, with chiefs using religion to legitimize their position (Perez 2000). These chiefs commanded a prestige goods economy that took advantage of regional exchange networks to distribute cult-related sumptuary artifacts, hallucinogenic substances (e. g., cebil or Anadenanthera sp.), and emblems of rank.
Settlement patterns indicate that for the most part the village way of life remained dominant during this period (e. g. Assandri and Juez 1996-97; Delfino 1996-97; Gambier 1996-97; Sempe et al. 1996-97). Whereas there were some small clustered villages during the Middle Period, there was not a dramatic change in the way people dwelled in the landscape. Settlements were still dispersed, small, and composed of a few houses closely related to the land. Nevertheless, significant changes are revealed by the increase of public architecture, in the form of mounds or platforms within villages (e. g., Callegari et al. 1996-97) or more impressive ceremonial centers such as La Rinconada, in Ambato, Catamarca (Gordillo 1990, 1992-94) (Figure 30.6), that reveals transformations in the construction of landscapes and places, as well as of local, regional, community, and supra-community identities.
Conspicuous ceremonial centers characterize the Middle Period Aguada landscape, something that, with very few exceptions, Early Period settlements lack (see Gordillo 2004 for a description of some of these places formalizing large public spaces, as well as their
Figure 30.6. Site plan of La Rinconada, Catamarca, major Aguada ceremonial center. (Redrawn from Gordillo 1990: 21).
Centrality and importance within sites; Callegari et al. 1996-97; Gonzalez et al. 1999; Gordillo 1990, 1992-94, 2004; Kush and Gordillo 1997; Perez Gollan 2000). Aguada ceremonial centers, which were established in close proximity to residential places, may have begun to function as poles of attraction for small neighbor communities and households, creating formal places for gathering. There is no evidence indicating that residents in control of the ceremonial centers had means to physically coerce people, obliging them to come to the central places. However, the effectiveness of the integration process is apparent in the consumption of similar material culture, and a rich world of symbolic ideology embodied by the widely spread objects. The Aguada landscape successfully integrated households and small communities, although they were still dispersed over a vast area.
The social integration achieved in choreographic ceremonial centers also promoted new tensions and contradictions in the experience of participants. Although on the one hand they were places for gathering and sharing at least rituals, the distinctive ideology and integrative identity, on the other, ceremonial centers were places of inequality and stratification. Their spatial design promoted the division between active ritual performers and their (probably more passive) audience. The distinction between the two strata was probably further emphasized by differences in knowledge and cultural capital, and in the quantity and quality of the goods consumed and displayed. Consequently, ceremonial centers operated as places that integrated dispersed communities and households under a shared ideology, but institutionalized social inequality and distinction.
Another tension that people and communities experienced during the Middle Period was between an ideology that seems to have reified violence (Balesta and Zagorodny 2003; Gonzalez 1998; Gordillo and Kush 1987; Perez Gollan 1986) and an apparently general lack of inter-communal or interregional conflict. On one hand, Aguada iconography depicts symbols connected with the wild (jaguars or stylized felines) [Note 4] as well as violence and warfare (persons holding weapons and/or decapitated heads and people wearing feline masks and costumes) (Figure 30.5). On the other hand, archaeological evidence suggests that conflict and warfare between Middle Period communities and regions was not very common. Aguada sites are generally located in valley bottoms, or in easily accessible places, and do not have prominent defensive features. Likewise, some archaeologists suggest that the rituals performed in Aguada ceremonial centers included human sacrifices. For instance, researchers found human bones in the platform mound associated with the public space at La Rinconada (Gordillo 1992-94, 2004), and there are tombs that contain human skulls interpreted as trophy heads. However, specific archaeological remains or contextual associations supporting such an interpretation have not been presented. In fact, evidence for rituals that entailed human sacrifices still seems quite weak, and the presence of disembodied heads in different contexts could very well correspond to practices of ancestor veneration. Therefore, where was the iconographically depicted violence experienced? Was it confined to a ritual domain and only experienced and/or witnessed at very specific times and places? Or did it refer to idealized cosmological and religious notions manipulated by an emergent political elite? Who were the enemies whose heads were supposedly taken and displayed? Were they actual enemies or victims selected for propitiatory sacrifices meant to benefit society as a whole? Or were the disembodied heads sacred relics of worshipped ancestors? Many issues still remain to be unraveled regarding the sociocultural dynamics of the Middle Period.
In sum, the Middle Period was a time of dramatic transformations in the social life of central and southern northwestern Argentina. It was a period of increasing supra-communal and interregional integration. Ceremonial centers provided places where people from different
Areas came together and had the opportunity to meet other people and groups. However, in these places of integration people also experienced a new sense of social distinction, for the public activities were presumably sponsored by social agents intent on institutionalizing social inequality. Furthermore, a distinctive style, set of symbols, and the ideology that produced them promoted a widely shared supra-regional identity during the Middle Period. This widespread ideology seems to have worked to legitimize the rise and reproduction of institutionalized positions of power and social inequality, creating a new focus of social tension. Nonetheless, for the most part, daily life remained unchanged from Early Period times. People still resided in small settlements directly related to the means of production. This would greatly change in the Late Period when the way of dwelling transformed quotidian social relations and the experience of place in settlements.
We do now know what happened to Aguada in the Late Period. Unfortunately the causes of its collapse or transformation remain little known. Archaeologists must devote more effort to exploring why and how Aguada ideology and ceremonial centers gave way to the remarkably different socio-cultural dynamics of the Late Period.
World History
