An Archaeology of the Oasis: Domesticity, Interaction, and Identity in Antofalla, Puna de Atacama, Argentina: First and Second Millennia B.P. 9781407301273, 9781407331676

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BAR S1689 2007  HABER  AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS

An Archaeology of the Oasis: Domesticity, Interaction, and Identity in Antofalla, Puna de Atacama, Argentina First and Second Millennia B.P.

Alejandro Fabio Haber

BAR International Series 1689 B A R

2007

An Archaeology of the Oasis: Domesticity, Interaction, and Identity in Antofalla, Puna de Atacama, Argentina First and Second Millennia B.P.

Alejandro Fabio Haber

BAR International Series 1689 2007

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 1689 An Archaeology of the Oasis: Domesticity, Interaction, and Identity in Antofalla, Puna de Atacama, Argentina © A F Haber and the Publisher 2007 Translated by Agostina Marchi The author's moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9781407301273 paperback ISBN 9781407331676 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407301273 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2007. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

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To Sabina and Tito, my parents.

“In that time, in the presage of the mutations to come, obscure constructors modelled premature images of a remote likely future. I went through a nuraghic metropolis all of stoned towers; crossed a mountain drilled with underground galleries as a thebaid; arrived to a harbour that opened itself upon a sea of mud; got inside a garden in whose sand stonecutters, high menhirs rose up to heaven.” (Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics)

Acknowledgments The fieldwork relevant for the research included in this volume was sponsored by the Secretary for Science and Technology of the National University at Catamarca, through the Research Grants “Archaeological research and cultural promotion: trial cases of Antofalla and Coneta-Miraflores”, from 1992, and “Early and Middle Period Archaeology in Tebenquiche area”, from 1995. Both projects were included in the program developed by the Secretary during the year when Elina Silvera de Buenader was chairing it, when she supported archaeological research. In several opportunities the Municipality of Antofagasta de la Sierra, through its Major Luis Rodríguez, helped with the transportation of the staff, equipment and staples. Fieldwork during 1989 and 1990 was funded by personal efforts and the collaboration of relatives, private enterpreneurs and labor unions. Field work benefitted on several occasions through the collaboration of diverse inhabitants of Antofalla, who offered their accomodation in their homes, food, friendship, skills and knowledge. Late Pedro Krapovickas was generous in not only sharing his experience in the area of Antofalla, he also provided access to and commented on the materials of his own fieldwork in 1952; he transmitted his enthusiasm for Puna archaeology and landscape, in the conversations in the residence of Tilcara and in the intimacy of his office in the Ethngraphical Museum. This and the future investigations in Tebenquiche are a tribute to his memory. Several coleagues and professors helped with this research. Some of them have provided relevant literature, others their words of support; all of them contributed to the develpment of the research. The La Plata Museum and the Ethnographic Museum in Buenos Aires provided the media, technical support, collections and archive that made possible the study of the Muniz Barreto and Krapovickas collections. The authorities and technical personnel of both institutions deserve my acknowledgment. The staff of the Haddon Library, University of Cambridge, and Cortazar Library, University of Buenos Aires, helped with the bibliographic research relevant for this volume. Patricia Bernardi analised the skeleton found in TC1, providing her experience on the topic. Ulises Pardiñas and Pablo Ortiz identified rare bone specimens. Several people commented on diverse parts and versions of the text, and/or discussed particular issues included. Among them, Carlos Baied, Robin Boast, Mirta Bonnin, Felipe Criado, Aníbal Figini, Pancho Gallardo, Joan Gero, A. Rex González, Carlos Herrán, Ian Hodder, Darío Iturriza, Pedro Krapovickas, Néstor Kriscautzky, Andrés Laguens, Agustín Llagostera, Lautaro Núñez, Carolina Oddone, Ulises Pardiñas, Cynthia Pizarro, Rodolfo Raffino, Carlota Sempé, Mike Shanks, Marie-Louise Sørensen, Penny Spikins, Myriam Tarragó, Julian Thomas, José Togo, Henrique Urbano, Juan Vicent and Todd Whitelaw. Many undergraduate students of archaeology participated in one or more field seasons. Their collaboration made possible this research. Particularly, Leandro D'Amore, Juan Ferreyra, Marquitos Gastaldi, Gabi Granizo, Marcos Quesada, made possible that the archaeology of Antofalla evolved between work and friendship. The history of this text is not complete without mentioning Dr. J. A. Pérez Gollán, who not only suggested the theme for my doctoral dissertation, but also provided new questions, intellectual stimulus, criticism, and friendship, contributin to shape the outcome. Silvina, my partner in the first travels to Tebenquiche, added to her role of mother that of a father during the many and long field seasons. She provided patience, understanding, advice, and love. She was the one who insisted on me following the research in Tebenquiche, even in moments when, without any kind of help, the whole project seemed to collapse. Beside her, Chago, Ini, Franchu and Vale gave the time and attention of their father. This volume is dedicated to my parents, who never doubted in giving me all their support.

iv

Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Planning of the Work Some Groundwork Clarifications

1 2 4

CHAPTER 2 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA The Puna de Atacama as a Fact: Domestication, Caravan, and Identity Domestication Caravan Identity The Puna de Atacama as Object: History, Literature, and Nation Synthesis of Chapter 2

7 7 7 9 11 16 29

CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS Structure and Agency, Global and Local From Domestication to Domesticity From the Textual Metaphor to a Tropology of the Oasis Steps towards the Oasis Synthesis of Chapter 3

31 31 35 41 48 49

CHAPTER 4 THE NATURE OF THE OASIS The Environmental Structure The Antofalla Area Introduction to Tebenquiche Chico Synthesis of Chapter 4

51 52 59 65 68

CHAPTER 5 THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS The Domestic Cells The Domestic Compounds The Domestic Landscape The Building of the House as Monument Domestic Representations The Life in the House: Sediment Chronology of the House Pottery and Time Chronology of the Oasis Synthesis of Chapter 5

70 71 84 98 102 116 120 132 140 145 157

CHAPTER 6 THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC The Underground Burial Chambers Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC38 Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC40 Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC39 The Burial Pattern: Memory and Ritual Action The Dissimilar Tomb The Construction of the Ancestors Pottery, Houses, and Tombs The Ritual Marking

159 163 163 164 166 166 169 170 171 176

CHAPTER 7 THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS The Invisible Caravan Technology of Interaction: From the Caravan to the Oasis The Circum-Puna Space Oases in Articulation The Domestic Bone Llama Cuisine Vicuña for Export

182 182 186 188 189 191 199 200

v

Fibres Basalt Taphonomy 1: Action by Rodents Taphonomy 2: Action by Carnivores Taphonomy 3: Burning Taphonomy 4: Weathering Taphonomy 5: Ages of Death Synopsis: Living Llamas and Dead Vicuñas TC41: A Hunting Stand Synthesis of Chapter 7

201 202 204 205 206 207 209 210 215 218

CHAPTER 8 THE OASIS THROUGHOUT HISTORY The Oasis Landscape Other oases in Antofalla sierra The Prehistory of the Oasis The Oasis after the oasis

220 220 222 235 244

EPILOGUE REFERENCES

251 253

vi

Chapter 1

Introduction “One of all of us has to write, if this is going to be told. It better be me that I’m dead, that I’m less engaged than the rest; me that can’t see more than the clouds and can think without getting distracted, write without getting distracted (there comes another one, with a grey ribbon), and remember without getting distracted, me that I’m dead (and alive, it’s not about deceiving no one, we’ll see when the time comes, because I have to start somehow and I‘ve started by this edge, the back one, the beginning one, that in the end is always the best of the edges when something is wanting to be told).” (Julio Cortázar, Blow-up) The thesis of this volume1 can be summed up as follows. Between the fourth and twelfth centuries A.D., though

probably already from the second and third centuries A.D. and until the thirteenth century A.D., an economic and symbolic rationality based on the construction and reproduction of the oasis landscape prevailed at the basin of the Antofalla salt lake, which is the centre of the region known as Puna de Atacama or Puna Salada. The oasis landscape was both a way of economic appropriation of the natural environment, and a way of actual delimitation of the domestic social units and kinship groups. The oasis constituted a manner of domestic relationship that included, at one time, the domestication of the Puna environment as well as that of the society as a whole. Far away from implying a selfsufficiency ideal, the oasis meant a permanent flow of interaction between different oases, and between these and other surrounding areas. This way, the oasis had nothing to do with isolation but the opposite; it was an active part in the conformation and reproduction of the macro-regional space. Thus, the origins of the oasis must be looked for both in the regional cultural tradition, and in the macro-Andean historic context. Finally, since the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries A.D., slowly and progressively -and while the conditions were changing throughout the macro-regional space-, the enclave landscape started getting superposed to the oasis in the Puna environment in general. In the north of the Antofalla basin, the enclave landscape has been getting superposed to the oasis since the nineteenth century. As part of the same process through which the enclave landscape turned dominant since the twentieth century, the literature of travellers and explorers created the Puna de Atacama as a geographic category. This has allowed the concealment of the oasis not only as a result of the superposition of the enclave landscape; at the same time and more important to urban culture-, it allowed it through the discursive construction of the Puna de Atacama as a description of the natural landscape.

1 This text basically comes from the PHD thesis “Una arqueología de los oasis puneños. Domesticidad, interacción e identidad en Antofalla, primer y segundo milenios d.C.”, finished and handed in to the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires in November 1999, and read in December 2000 before the examination tribunal, who qualified it as outstanding and recommended its publication. Some minor changes have been introduced for this publication, including grammar corrections, bibliography, and some other little mistakes that were found in the uphold version. The nomenclature of Tebenquiche Chico’s pottery assemblage has been modified as well. We have also modified the stress on the consideration of the historic relevance of enclaves. The documentary appendixes that were included in the original thesis were removed. Research has continued in the area of Antofalla after the presentation of this thesis; thus, many particular case-based studies on Tebenquiche Chico’s archaeology have been brought about since then. Among them, there are studies on cultural categorization of pottery (Granizo 2001), irrigation technology and rural production (Quesada 2001), biography and social history of farming spades (Gastaldi 2002), stratigraphic sequences from the perspective of social practices (D’Amore 2002), colonial occupations (Lema 2004), anthracology and use of fire (Jofré 2004), and technology and function of lithics (Moreno 2005). These studies constitute sensitive additions to the substantive knowledge of the site’s archaeology and expand and correct some aspects of this text. The researches that were developed at Archibarca since 2001 have modified the understanding of the prehistory of the oasis, and, at the same time, the researches at Incahuasi in 2003 and 2004, and at Antofalla during all these years, have led to a revision of the role enclaves played in Puna history. These investigations have richened the perspectives we develop in here, but all those have been also based on these. Though not substantially, theoretical perspectives have changed in emphasis and maturity during the past years too. We have not included any reference to recent publications in the bibliography because the original text’s references were preferred over the rejuvenation of the authority. Political contexts have changed as well. Both the political context of the region and the populations involved in the narration and all those other contexts involved in the relationship between such indigenous rural populations and archaeological practice are different, so nowadays, other requests and relevancies become more echoed. The impersonal style in which this text has been written is no longer of the author’s preference, and the fact that it is still kept in here is only due to a residual trace of the kind of text we are dealing with. We have preferred maintaining the original text with only minor corrections over introducing significant changes because, since this text is a platform upon which Antofalla’s archaeology has developed and keeps on developing now, it is and it will be a compulsory source of reference until archaeology -through the incorporation of newer investigations, theoretic readings, voices, and writings- establishes a platform that replaces this one. Some of the answers have changed; many prevail;

before these, almost every question keeps standing. The undergone changes and the ones to come have been foreseen in the questions that, in the epilogue written six years ago, were opened as closure of this text.

1

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA An archaeology of Puna oases, therefore, should include two aspects of the excavation or the discovery. One of them, archaeology as it is understood by archaeologists, that is, the digging that brings to light what was before materially hidden by the superposition of upper strata. The other, closer to the sense Foucault2 gives to archaeology, would be the analysis of the genealogy of the discursive categories through which history and society are materialized (Johnson 1996). This work begins with the second of these two senses, and continues with the first one. The critical perspective taken, on the other hand, makes such differentiation between both archaeologies rather artificial.

Planning of the Work After this introduction, where the thesis and organization of the volume have been introduced, Chapter 2 analyzes the main assumption that operates for the Puna archaeological literature as a whole. This, as Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas (1973) have already said, has to do with the image of the Puna as a homogeneously deserted and desolated territory. In the current analysis, we state that this assumption comes from the idea of the Puna de Atacama (or Puna Salada) given by geography itself. Specifically, that means that the Puna de Atacama has been built as a marginal geography and a desolated landscape from a perspective that can only be partially explained as coming from the lower valleys, because it actually answers to wider historical structures and more influential cultural contents. This image, which from now on will be simply referred to as Puna de Atacama, is included as a cultural habit in the acknowledgement of geography. This way, it remains undisputed and reproduced in practice, even when regarding the interpretation of the past. Within archaeology, it might well be considered a regular disposition that ends up naturalized precisely for having the appearance of a self-evident representation of nature (Gosden 1994). With the purpose of proving the historic character of this image of nature -that is to say, that it is a historic construction and not a natural fact-, we expose the way in which the Puna de Atacama was created as a literary image in the genre of travellers’ accounts, and how, from there on, it was introduced in the archaeological discourse as a constitutive aspect of its scope. All this is argued within the historic context in which the literary construction of the Puna de Atacama took place, and emphasizing the involved economic, political, and ethnic aspects.

Otonello and Krapovickas were the ones that initiated the critical work on the paradigmatic vision of the Puna by affirming it as part of a perspective that had its origins in perception (Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas 1973). Pérez Gollán related the conformation of this image to wider historic processes connected to the development of national states (Pérez Gollán 1994b). The change of perspective the works of these authors illustrate corresponds to the possibility of a historic reconstruction that can be centred in Puna oases and that, at one time, can take into account the oases’ local developments linking them to more general macro-regional processes just as it was pointed out by Tarragó (1984). This work, devoted to characterize the Puna oasis of the Antofalla area during the first two millennia B.P., is organized around the delineation of the limits of the oasis, and the description of its contents. This way, the oasis is defined from different angles. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce a state of the issue, a critical analysis, and a theoretical-methodological framework. Nevertheless, none of these items is left fully defined by the correspondent Chapter, because the critical reconstruction of the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama in terms of an archaeology of the oasis is not based upon an opposition or destruction of the preceding, but, instead, on its deconstruction and integration to a new framework that will be orientated from a critical perspective. Consequently, the critical interpretation of the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama is a necessary part of the process of construction of an archaeology of the oasis. Throughout the following Chapters, the oasis will be defined by the description of its environmental limits (Chapter 4), its inner domestic contents (Chapter 5), its construction as context of local social interaction (Chapter 6), and as the local strategies meant for its articulation with extra-local contexts of interaction (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 situates the oasis inside the regional structural history.

Subsequently, we introduce the ways in which the image of the Puna de Atacama was incorporated to archaeology, and the paths through which it has been operating, since then, as a naturalized image3 of nature in the reconstructions of the past of the region through the themes of domestication, identity, and interaction. This will be useful for understanding the cultural background of the pre-theoretical understandings4 that concern the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama. Those authors concerned for the historic and cultural definition of the populations of the area have emphasized their inferiority and poverty when opposed to societies of surrounding areas. This emphasis has been based, nonetheless, upon the assumption that getting sustenance within the difficult Puna environment absorbed all the efforts, and that local populations had to appeal, therefore, to trade with more developed areas from which, thus, they were dependent

2 This does not imply an agreement with Foucault’s theoretical position -to which, on the other hand, criticisms that are relevant to the purposes of this work have already been made (Gosden 1994; Maley 1990; Waterman 1990). Nonetheless, his appropriation of archaeology is useful as metaphor of the critical research of assumptions.

3 Chapter 3 develops the category of landscape in relationship with domesticity; this will allow understanding how the dialectic of nature works at a theoretical-archaeological level. 4 Meaning, previous to theory; that is from where they get their naturalized character.

2

INTRODUCTION on. In this context, the Puna de Atacama has been understood as a cultural and economic periphery of little importance to the cultural development of the region as a whole. By allowing the insertion of the local cases within a complex network of articulations, the theme of interaction has largely modified the axis of the discussion. Nevertheless, it has tended to reduce the role of the oases of the Puna de Atacama to simple intermediation agents inside llama caravan interchange. The need of emphasizing the connections between the subsistence economies of the Puna oases and their leading role in trading has been seen. At the same time, the theme of domestication and subsistence economies has tended to overvalue the role of sustenance searching in the organization of the societies that inhabited Puna oases, not contemplating, thus, the social and symbolic aspects that are necessarily involved in the appropriation of landscape.

methodological framework, an all-together consideration of structure and contingency, following a multiple-scale approach. Also in Chapter 3 -and with the purpose of contributing to the critical reconstruction of conceptual frameworks and research instruments that will overcome the usual dichotomies between economy and symbolism, structure and agency, and subsistence and society-, we develop the concept of domesticity and the relevance of domestic relationships as theoretical-methodological category. After that, different proposals of symbolic interpretation of the material culture are critically analyzed so to define some conceptual categories that might be able to beat the intellectualistic positions that separate the symbol from its meaning. In order to do this, we link the categories of landscape, monument, and stratigraphy, with a practiceoriented perspective. This allows adopting a point of view from which it is possible to contextualize the strategies of construction of social identities throughout history.

Whether it is sustenance searching, trade partnership, or cultural identification, one of the main flaws of the named perspectives is their tendency to overestimate only one aspect as driving force of Puna societies. Instead, we propose a framework inside which all the different aspects will be included. It is not a systemic point of view, where each social aspect constitutes a sub-system or an element inside a sub-system. Such a perspective takes for granted the assumption of functional differentiation of variables5 that has remained a nonproved or, all the more, a contradictory statement to ethnographic literature as a whole within systemic functionalism. Chapter 3 proposes a theoreticalmethodological framework that is guided by theory of practice and searches to overcome dichotomist statements such as functional-stylistic, economic-symbolic, or sustenance-society (Boast 1997).

From a practice-oriented perspective and taking into account multiple scales, the oasis landscape is proposed as key category for the understanding of the phenomena we are studying. The oasis, understood as a culturally constructed natural landscape, allows finding a scale from which re-focussing the problematic of domestication of nature. At the same time, since the oasis is a delimitation of the landscape that includes a relationship with the world beyond the desert, it also allows the reformulation of the problem of interaction from the agent’s perspective. Finally, it is from the oasis from where the practices of construction of group identities are intended to be analyzed. Thus, as a category, the oasis includes, at one time, smaller and bigger scales. This way, by incorporating an analysis of the practices in each one of these multiple scales where they relate to the different structures, an interpretation of the bonds between historic processes inside and outside the oasis becomes possible.

A second underlying theoretical aspect of the archaeological literature on the Puna is the relationship between structure and social action. The natural environment, the organization of trading networks, or the cultural regulations, have tended to impose themselves in their respective perspectives and with stronger or weaker influence as determinant factors of individual social action. In this sense, and despite individual actions -or their accretion- are always implied in the different argumentations, there has been little room left for the understanding of the private actions and responses of the involved individuals. On the other hand, those perspectives that are more concerned for rescuing the local particularities and, therefore, closer to private actions, have lost the relevance a more heedful consideration of the general processes would have given them6. Chapter 3 includes, in the theoretical-

Chapter 4 makes a description of the Puna landscape in general, in whose context we introduce the physical conditions of construction of the oasis. In order to do this, we characterize the environment trying to explain it in structural and historic terms. Special attention is paid to the delineation of the oasis as an anomaly of the desert. We present different examples and introduce the case under analysis: Tebenquiche Chico. Chapter 5 describes the domestic scale that characterizes the modular units that form the oasis. Inner and outer spaces of the domestic compounds are detailed. A detailed case of analysis -TC1- is taken, and its inner architecture and domestic space are described by using the categories of monument and sediment. The outer

5 For example, the classic trilogy ‘technomic-sociotechnic-ideotechnic’ enounced by Binford (1965). 6 This apparent dilemma might be illustrated through the comparison of the texts in which González and Krapovickas have worked on Tebenquiche (or Tebenquiche culture, or Kipón-Tebenquiche culture). This way, Tebenquiche was minimized under the influence of a much

wider regional perspective to the extent of being left marginalized of the regional cultural development, or, alternatively, to the extent of losing relevance because of the difficulty of integrating it into a general scheme while its original features were being underlined.

3

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA domestic spaces and the way in which practices are left engraved in the material culture are described as well. Special attention is paid to material demarcations and practical links between domestic units, which leads us to the description of practices and representations of appropriation of nature. Time perceptions and constructions are analyzed from an inside-oasis perspective. We examine both the chronology of the excavated domestic compound and those of the remaining ones.

a subjectivist point of view, not without asking certain ingenuity from the reader. We honestly state what we have complete belief in. Nonetheless, we do not pretend this work to be fully objective or definitive, for we understand our own research as historically contextualized, and, hence, plausible of being taken under the same critical process of reconstruction under which we took our precedents. It is from a critical perspective from where the past is reconstructed, and, being consequent with this orientation, we do not intend this reconstruction to be definitive (Thomas 1995). It has been some time now since it has been acknowledged that language, even though it is the medium through which the knowledge of reality is articulated, does not reflect it, and, thus, it should not be expected to do so properly or, at least, not hoping to find a way of making oneself sure about it (Habermas 1988). But language, on the other hand, gives us the possibility of establishing -each timemore creative ways of evaluating that which, discursively, is being recognized as reality. We do not appeal to subjectivism or objectivism because we understand this dichotomy might be overcome from a critical perspective (Leone 1991). Theoretical discussion and empiric materials are part of a same practice. By splitting them, we can only get to positivist empiricisms or literally exercises (Hodder 1992a). Applying to archaeology what has been said for social sciences, this “may use the conscience and the knowledge that it has of its functions and its functioning to try to rise up some of the obstacles for the progress of knowledge and conscience”, because “only the anamnesis that the historical work allows can make disappear the amnesia that is implied, almost inevitably, in the daily routine with heritage, which is, essentially, turned into disciplinary doxa.” (Bourdieu 1995: 3).

Chapter 6 relates domestic compounds between them in the conformation of a village scale. It is seen in which ways the extra-domestic kinship groups were built, and how that implied a new time and space demarcation that got the social content of the oasis together. Daily and seasonal routines, as well as the relationship between these and the lifetime, are explored. Active roles of the material culture -such as paintings, rituals, or death- are interpreted in the categorization of social temporalities and identities. Chapter 7 treats the scale in which the oasis becomes articulated to the macro-regional space. We examine the data that might be interpreted as evidence of llama caravan enterprises, and the functioning of this interpretation. An articulation model between the oases’ peasant economies and the world beyond the desert is presented. We explore the construction of ethnic identities in terms of disemic strategies7. We present an articulation model that allows us foreseeing the expansion and contraction joints within the long-time structure of which the oasis is a part of. Chapter 8 analyzes the oasis’ time and space from the perspective of its relationship with the Andean region. The paths of other Puna oases are commented. Upon the available information, a possible panorama of the origins of the oasis is proposed. We examine the period that came after that during which the oasis was dominant as landscape, strongly stressing its superposition to the enclave landscape. Chapter 8 includes, at the same time, the synthesis and conclusion of this book. The epilogue collects some thoughts about the future of the oasis.

The adopted critical perspective does not imply we have planned ourselves to destroy or defeat established positions or to critic other investigators’ interpretations. The critical perspective implies, instead, a permanent concern for the limits of possible knowledge and, therefore, a search that stubbornly provokes crisis in it. The limits of archaeological knowledge, it is known, are partially originated by the action of time over the materials, and partially originated by the own incapacities of researchers for observing and interpreting those materials. These incapacities are only partially technical; lots of them are theoretical and logical, and, at the same time, many of them are originated in the own historic material determinations. The critical perspective intends to identify those limitations that are hidden -in our daily practices as members of the academy or the society, or under an apparently neutral technical covering- so that they are brought back to theoretical discussion, and so that we become able to find possible paths for the progress of knowledge.

Some Groundwork Clarifications It is necessary to say some words about the pretension of truth of this work. To this purpose, we must call the attention to its title, which starts with the article ‘an’. With this, we do not pretend to suggest that the interpretations within this book might be just ones among many equally valid others8 -as it could be enounced from 7 Meaning they have different, even contradictory meanings. See Chapter 3, this same volume. 8 Such is the pretension of, for example, Hodder, when writing his relevant work on European Neolithic (Hodder 1990). Such a position might be considered a rhetorical strategy that diminishes -more than adding up to- the appreciation of his proposals. Regarding this, Deleuze’s words may be suitable: “The indefinite article cannot be the

indetermination of the person without being at the same time the determination of the singular” (Deleuze 1997: 5).

4

INTRODUCTION Regarding south-central Andes regional archaeology, we need to add other difficulties. The most influential among them is the shortage of empiric researches guided by detailed methodologies that are actually capable of adding up to the construction of deeper and more embracing interpretative syntheses. It seems paradoxical since this work intends to characterize a particular way of the archaeological landscape in terms of the oasis by defining it through its relationship with the surrounding desert and the valleys beyond the east- that almost any particular case investigation will find itself faced against the reality of an oasis surrounded by a desert of information. This false analogy or impression comes from the low density of case-based researches, a reality that only seems to have started changing -really slowly and irregularly- over the last few years. It is definitely not necessary to wait for a large enough quantity of information for trying a synthesis interpretation because that deserves every critic that narrow empiricism has had. Instead, integrating interpretations allow combining particular cases with general processes, and, even when they are necessarily more vulnerable to future rectifications due to newer data and readings, they encourage the contribution of case-based researches and general discussions that are actually more relevant to the understanding of the regional historic processes.

We have been hearing of Antofalla archaeology since, at least, 1901 (Moreno 1901), and, more frequently, since Krapovickas’ thesis in the 1950’s. However, the effort dedicated to integrate a casuistic that would back it up has not been equally held. This work presents the results of the first intensive surveys, detailed surveys, stratigraphic excavations, detailed analysis on archaeological materials, intensive recollections with contextual allocation, and radiometric dates. We also present a reinterpretation of the contextualization of Antofalla’s history inside the regional history. Such reinterpretation has two different supports: the critical reconstruction of the preceding interpretations, and the plus of “fresh” information that was obtained by the author and all those who collaborated with him. The interpretations are based upon a body of information that is mostly original and until now non-published, and on an argumentative support that includes that information. Since we are presenting a detailed registered body of data as backup, we explicitly avoid any shelter on subjectivism. We do not pretend an objectivism either, because the pretension of truth is deduced and deductible. The limits of the present interpretations, thus, are given by the veracity of the facts and the determinations of practice itself10. Both could be utterly developed, and, then, the interpretations of this book would be overcome.

In these circumstances, it may be partially said that the difficulty we have introduced in the previous paragraph becomes a comparative advantage. Because oases are not just a mere allusive image of the regional research’s current situation; instead, they are interpretations of particular historic realities. That is to say, the material scale of the main case of study coincides with the material scale of the historic landscape: the oasis is not dexterity of the lack of knowledge around a particular case; it is the interpretation of a historic reality. Nonetheless, the confidence that such an interpretation could imply cannot be abused, and we explicitly acknowledge that the interpretations within this work present the limits the current state of the investigation imposes to them9.

Finally, and before starting developing the central body of this work, we include a last observation that, this time, concerns a matter of terminology. There is not full homogeneity in the use of the concept ‘Puna de Atacama’. To some researchers it includes the Atacama salt lake, and to others it does not. Other authors have preferred to use concepts as ‘puna salada’, ‘puna meridional’, or ‘puna argentina sur’. In this work, we will intend a criticism of the assumptions that are implicit in these geographic categories, and, hence, we abandon the territorial use of the term ‘puna’, and we appeal to its Quechua meaning as landscape category. Every time any researcher (Shennan 1988). Thus, where the information structure advices it, quantitative techniques are applied, but without taking the sight from the cultural interpretation of objects and variables. 10 According to Edwards, Ashmore, and Potter, when relativists talk about social construction of reality, cognition, scientific knowledge, technical capability, social structure, etc., their realist opponents begin, sooner or later, to hit the furniture, call the Holocaust, talk about rocks, tables, and chairs. The strength of these objections lies on the introduction of a bottom line, a bed rock of reality that delimits what might be treated as epistemologically capable of being constructed or deconstructed, and what might not. There are two types of related movements: Furnishing (tables, rocks, stones, etc.: reality that CANNOT be denied), and Death (misery, genocide, poverty, power: reality that SHOULD NOT be denied). These authors show how these statements work, how they exchange themselves, and how unconvincing they are when examined as refutations to relativism (Edwards et al. 1995). O’Neill prefers, instead, throwing a pint of beer to the relativist; if he puts his arm up to avoid being hit, it is because he assumed it was real; hence, he is realist (O´Neill 1995). Edwards and his collaborators, knowing that O’Neill’s argument does not move them, would say ‘Furnishing again’. But the argument does allow, instead, introducing a question to constructivism through the side of afectiveness of action that which is further (or nearer) social construction.

9 Regarding the application of sample theory to the design of surfaces and/or precise places where to dig or recollect, the eminently qualitative nature of the spatial socio-cultural organization implies the introduction of so many variables to take into account that, obviously, they will end up not being taken into consideration until after having dug or recollected, and, in general, the statistic significance levels will not resist the correspondent evaluation (Nance 1983). The assumption of regular distribution is really difficult to maintain for a whole settlement or precinct excavation, and, even in the assumed case of obtaining the credits statistic relevance could offer, nothing is said about its cultural significance yet (Hodder and Orton 1990; Yacobaccio 1990). Neither the most abundant, nor the most similar (or dissimilar), find their cultural explanation in the fact of being so, but, instead, in the fact of having formed active parts of particular historic contexts. The definition of objects is, in first place, a historically qualitative problem, and quantitative analysis can only begin once the objects have been at least defined as an attempt (Beech 1995; Wylie 1992). This work applies techniques of observation and registration of qualitatively and quantitatively relevant objects. We do not deny statistics or quantitative analyses; on the contrary, their usefulness depends on the contexts of their application, and these, at their time, are qualitatively chosen by the

5

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA reference to ‘Puna de Atacama’ is made, it is being referred to the historically constructed meaning of the territory that is more or less coincident with the ancient Territorio de los Andes, or that is delimited by the high lands (over 3,000 m asl) that are to the west of the Atacama basin and the Atacama desert (both of less altitude).

6

Chapter 2

Archaeology of the Puna de Atacama “Follow me, not on the mule, but with your imagination…” (Daniel Cerri, El Territorio de Los Andes) Otonello and Krapovickas opened the critical perspective towards the descriptions of the Puna as marginal landscape. They did not only see the subjectivity of the geographic images, but also assigned them to the perspective of perception: “It calls our attentions that those expressions [of the Puna as a homogenously desolated, inhospitable, and not proper for human habitat region] are ones of authors that have climbed to the Puna from lower and more comfortable regions. It must not be forgotten that, for reaching the Puna from the ChacoPampean plains, it is indispensable to cross the exuberant chain of the Tucumano-Oranean forest. So we think -without fearing to be wrong- that all those descriptions are strongly charged with subjectivity” (Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas 1973: 4).

of the regional archaeological literature and it does not intend to be so; it intends a theoretical analysis of the assumptions about nature and culture that run under the archaeological narratives on the Puna de Atacama. The result of this analysis is not an exegesis of the relevant texts but, instead, a delineation of their main leading paths that allows relating and bringing to light the assumptions that not always become explicit on the texts, giving room to the understanding of the interpretations and to their critical reconstruction1.

It seems, nevertheless, that such perspective is based upon “the conception that backups the delimitation of space, how the societies that occupied and occupy the defined territory are like, which is their historic depth, and which the kind of relationships they have established with nature” (Pérez Gollán 1994: 33).

Moreno’s statement according to which “… this deserted and broken lands are apparently not suitable for permanent human settlement” (Moreno 1901: 584) contains an unvarying idea within the archaeological research of the Puna de Atacama: the long history of human occupation in the Puna can be understood in terms of a process of progressive adaptation to an extremely hostile environment. From this perspective, the adaptivist orientation is less questioned, the more marginal the environment is considered. This way, domestication understood as the multiple, progressive, continuous experiences of domination of the external nature- finds itself justified in the geographic image of the Puna de Atacama, and builds the privileged discourse of the archaeological narrative. The ‘apparent unfitness’ of the landscape of the Puna de Atacama is implicitly reproduced in the current archaeological literature. Nevertheless, this image does not start here but in a long history of appropriation of the Puna region, where politics, geography, and archaeology have knitted a complex network that lends its appearance of nature to the image of the Puna as marginal landscape2.

The Puna de Atacama as a Fact: Domestication, Caravan, and Identity Domestication

This perspective, since it implies a deeper cultural criticism that allows deconstructing the assumptions that -as the marginality of the Puna- constitute habits that reproduce the academic practices, has significant theoretical-methodological consequences. The critical perspective has recently produced relevant reflections whose almost programmatic content is worth keeping in mind: “It was necessary to break with ‘the common sense’, but it was also necessary to break with the existent theories about the ‘puna’. It is also necessary to consider these constructions or pre-constructions as constitutive parts of the social and cultural relationships of the subject itself. They are not a mere externality that, as fallen leaf, allows reaching the pure object” (Isla 1992: 29). In this Chapter we examine the ways in which the assumption of nature has operated in the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama. The analysis shows how this assumption, based on the literary creation of the Puna de Atacama as a representation of the landscape, has operated in the interpretation, from many different perspectives, of the pre-Hispanic past. This allows verifying that we might not necessarily be dealing with a theoretical content but, perhaps, with a pre-theoretical one that, as such, is reified inside the object. The discussion is structured around the thematic axis upon which the Puna de Atacama has been constructed as archaeological object: identity, interaction, and domestication. What follows is not an exhaustive review

In such a context, the relevance of domestication as subject of investigation becomes intelligible3. During the 1 The adjective ‘critical’ should be understood as the German philosophical tradition understands it, that is, as crisis of the assumptions of possible knowledge. 2 An archaeology-oriented criticism of the geographic images has also been undertaken respect other regions, for example, the Patagonia (Pérez de Micou 1995). 3 The representations of domestication will be referred to with the concept ‘domesticity’ (this theoretical category is developed in Chapter 3, this same volume). Upon the idea that representations and practices of domination of the external nature (domestication) reproduce, and are reproduced by, the representations and practices of domination of the internal nature (domination), this concept is applicable both to the past and to the present.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA 1980’s and 1990’s, domestication and llama herding development as local processes became two of the most frequent subjects of archaeological research in the Puna de Atacama (Aschero 1994; Aschero, Elkin, and Pintar 1991; Escola 1996; García 1991; Haber 1988, 1991a, 1991b, 1992a, 1993, 1995-1996, 1999; Olivera 1988, 1991a, 1991c, Olivera and Nasti 1993a; Olivera and Podestá 1993, 1995; Pintar 1995, 1996; Yacobaccio 1994; Yacobaccio et al. 1994; Yacobaccio and Madero 1991). In general, camelid domestication has been understood as a strategy of adaptation to the limitations of the environment4. This way, for example, a recent publication states: “If we begin saying that, given the characteristics of the environment, groups of hunters were near its subsistence limits, then, the possibility of food production becomes likely and seems to have started 6,000/5,000 years ago” (Yacobaccio et al. 1994: 30).

the potential options, and, all the more, that they would have been able to do so while deciding which one of them would be the most convenient evolutionally speaking, that is to say, in a long-term perspective5. It is necessary to remark, besides, the pre-theoretical nature of this hypothetic interpretation. The ecologic marginality of the Puna de Atacama, which was assumed as paradigmatic, determined the fact that the region constituted itself as an experimental laboratory for camelid domestication without taking into account other necessarily implied variables -such as, for example, social ones (Aschero 1994). The equation demographytechnology-resources6 determined, in a more or less significant way, the settlement and subsistence strategies (Haber 1988; Olivera 1988). These explanations clearly disregard aspects that are undoubtedly relevant to the understanding of economic changes. For example, the importance of the social appropriation of natural resources has been widely considered in the definition of herding economies (Ingold 1987), and the symbolic factors that were included in the processes of origin of the peasant societies of the Early Neolithic have been remarked (Hodder 1990; Thomas 1991). It is within this perspective where Aschero’s question -whose consequences put him apart from mere rhetorics- can be read: “Do we define strategies by putting the emphasis on the game of supplies, demands, and optimizations of the resources to find adaptivist regularities in the analyzed processes… or do we try to define them by emphasizing the recovering of the data that concerns ways of social organization […] and the particular ideological aspects that regulate the choices of the making and the being of the communities in their respective spaces?” (Aschero 1988: 222). Not denying the significance of risk fundamental feature of the environment- and that of demographic growth as variables that might have produced a situation of instability, the same author remarks, in a later and more explicit formulation, the need of “taking into account, comparing, or opposing the evidence regarding the experience that is accumulated in the generational memory of these populations”, [meaning], “in the ways of social interaction that were optimized in order to give answers to these situations” (Aschero 1994: 15).

A similar proposition had been presented a few years earlier for a wider geographical scale, characterizing what has been called “the productive option” (Olivera 1988). The implementation of productive economies -that in the case of the Puna de Atacama means llama herding- is understood as an option that is picked among many others -from which Yacobaccio et al. [1994] enounce five- while facing the stress produced by an imbalance between demography and economic resources. The same authors accept we do not have enough evidence yet to evaluate the concordance of such an imbalance between both terms of the relationship -demographic growth and climatic deterioration- and the dates that have been assigned to the productive decision. This, nonetheless, does not invalid the proposed hypothesis. On the other hand, and based on diverse types of evidence from the Chilean lakes of Atacama and Punta Negra, a strong climatic deterioration has been proposed between 8,500 and 5,000 b.p. (Grosjean and Núñez 1994; Núñez and Grosjean 1994). Núñez relates this period to an “archaeological silence” of the “unstable” areas of Atacama and Punta Negra, at the end of which some occupations that do present evidences of camelid domestication would have appeared (Núñez 1989). What becomes particularly important now, however, is not the content of truth of the adaptivist hypotheses, which -as it has been said- still wait for evidence backup for their relevant variables. The important issue in this discussion is the fact that they are interpretations whose main assumption is an imbalance between the population’s subsistence needs and the carrying capabilities of the environment. They assume that hunting populations would have been in conditions of evaluating

Even though Aschero is clearly critical of economicist functionalisms, his interpretations reproduce the environmental over-determination every time he intends to give process explanations. Although he claims for the incorporation of social and ideological variables along with the economic ones, the functional independence of the different spheres -economic, social, and ideological-, main assumption of functionalism, ends up reproducing

4

It would be inaccurate, nonetheless, to pretend that overcoming the adaptivist approach would imply underestimating the efforts and results of the so called ‘archaeological project of Antofagasta de la Sierra’. Directed by C. A. Aschero, D. E. Olivera, and M. M. Podestá, it has meant, from its beginnings in the early 1980’s, the most relevant addition to the knowledge of the archaeology of the Southern Puna. The definition of this work’s theme can be greatly considered rooted in that project.

5 Both criticisms have already been raised regarding the adaptivist approach within archaeology. 6 Equation that has its rawest theoretical formulation in Cambridge’s ultraliberal school of palaeoeconomy (Higgs and Jarman 1975), which states that the determinant aspect of human culture is, precisely, the less specifically human, that is, instincts.

8

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA it is necessary to make a criticism to the perspectives from which the landscape is described so not to reproduce interpretation schemes in which the Puna environment is so poor that only leaves a few choices to its inhabitants. In the end, this unavoidably ends up giving to its history the sole meaning of a domesticating epic of that extreme nature. Of course that subsistence must have been a permanent concern for Puna inhabitants of all times and that they must have dedicated it unbelievable efforts. But this does not imply that sustenance searching was the only or the most visible human concern, or that it is enough for an understanding of the culture and the history of Puna societies. It is not possible to give such an importance to subsistence in any historic or ethnographic case nowhere in the world either, no matter how deserted and marginal it may be. In this sense, it is necessary to take on a framework that, instead of assuming the neverproved independency of the economic, social, and symbolic spheres, understands that every phenomenon is, at one time, economic, social, and symbolic7.

an environmental determinism that is independent from theory. Environmental determinism, according to which the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama ends up giving excessive relevance to the domesticating dictum, does not depend on the theoretical framework of the research. Instead, it is surreptitiously incorporated to this one in the cultural and scientific construction of the Puna de Atacama as a geographic category. Krapovickas, who wanted to replace the image of the Puna as an ecologically marginal environment, doubted the studies on herding: “It has frequently been considered that, during the Pottery period, the Puna was dominated by a mainly herding economy in front of which agriculture would have had an absolutely secondary and almost inexistent role. This image was based on an appreciation that over-generalized the natural conditions of the region, on the projection of some situations that were observed in present populations to the past, and on a partial interpretation of the archaeological data” (Krapovickas 1984: 111).

From a dialectically approached framework, we adopt a perspective according to which the domestication of the external nature is not an independent process from the domestication of the internal nature, that is, the domination between human beings [Habermas 1990 (1968)]. Within this framework, domestication and domination are indivisible in practice and their representations reproduce each other mutually. Specifically, this Chapter shows how the Puna de Atacama can be considered a historic-literary construction that defines the region as an ecologically and culturally marginal landscape. Such construction of the Puna de Atacama as a geographic category was originated as a literary genre in the travellers’ accounts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it is implicit in every description of the area that has been made by geographers and/or by all those researchers (including archaeologists) that have gone to them for advice. Moreno’s statement with which this section was started might be considered the turning moment when the travellers’ accounts genre introduced itself into archaeology. It is interesting its ending being: “…but that has not always been that way” (Moreno 1901: 584).

In many works, Krapovickas stressed the significance of agriculture in the archaeology of the Puna and, particularly, in that of Tebenquiche (Krapovickas 1955, 1968, 1984; Krapovickas et al. 1980). See, as an example, the following paragraph: “One of the surely most ancient sites with clear evidences of cultivation is found south of the west section. It is Tebenquiche, on the coast of the Antofalla Lake. Even though absolute dates have not been reached here, the site can be considered part of the Agro-Pottery early period of the Argentinean north-western chronology through the comparison of the remains found there to others that were dated. That period starts during the last centuries before Christ. This way, Tebenquiche shows a remarkable early agricultural summit. There are terraces and agricultural fields, as well as traces of irrigation practices” (Krapovickas 1984: 114-115). Although Krapovickas was far from being an environmental determinist, the importance given to agriculture in such early stages as the ones of Tebenquiche is a particularly relevant element in the characterization of the site. This way, the strength of domestication as domination of nature was reproduced -in this case with an agricultural orientation instead of a herder one- in the definition of the most ancient developments of the permanent settlement of the area.

Caravan Another question that has involved the Puna de Atacama throughout the history of regional archaeological research is that of intersocietal interactions. In these cases, the Puna de Atacama had to play hierarchically inferior roles such as place of passage for trade, influence receptor, or territory of extractive enclave exploitation. Already a decade ago, an encompassing analysis of the models of diffusion and trade was proposed under the same framework of interaction between societies (Schortman and Urban 1987). In the case under analysis, the ancient

The discussion that is presented in this work does not disqualify the analyzed interpretations. It does not suggest that strategies of appropriation of subsistence resources should not necessarily include a certain adaptation to environmental conditions either, or that, as a whole, they are irrelevant for understanding the history of the populations that inhabited the area. But, as it was pointed out by Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas (1973) and as it is analyzed in this Chapter,

7 For an alternative theoretical discussion, see Chapter 3, this same volume.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Puna inhabitants had already been assigned the role of mediators between the Chilean and Argentinean cultural developments8. The same way, the relevance of trade for the subsistence of Puna inhabitants had already been considered, from Nordenskiöld (1903) and Ambrosetti (1905), to Krapovickas (1968) and González (1979). But it was in 1978 when the most influential text on interregional interaction was published (Núñez and Dillehay 1978). The mayor addition of these authors is having stressed, for the first time, the regional perspective from an oasis -oasis meaning an inhabited spot surrounded by wide deserted lands. Seeing the world like this allows understanding the fact that the stress was put on circulation better than on production. Circulation follows a complex network of associations between spots or oases and areas or valleys that are located in diverse ecological environments; that is why they constitute themselves as suppliers and demanders of a variety of economic, social, and symbolic goods. The spots of provisioning, supply, and gathering of goods are semisedentary to sedentary axis-settlements that provide the caravan network with the necessary balance for its functioning. It is convenient to reproduce the following ideas to see the huge potential of this statement:

space, circuit mobility established the transportation of caravans with goods from the Altiplano, the oases (San Pedro de Atacama cultural pattern), and the tropical forest of the eastern pass, being the Altiplano the knot through which these movements circulated until constituting particular cultural physiognomies, different to the central Altiplano development, and opposed to the developments of the valleys of Southern Peru and Northern Chile” (Núñez and Dillehay 1978: 40). The same scheme was updated a couple of times (Dillehay and Núñez 1988, Núñez and Dillehay 1995). No doubt, the idea of circuit mobility -or whatever other name is preferred for naming the articulation of an economic and cultural space in a macro-regional scale and throughout history- represents an enormous incentive for regional research because it gives bigger relevance to particular cases for what they might bring to the understanding of history in a wider scale. At the same time, the oasis perspective, since it allows abandoning cultural historical narratives in favour of the study of historic processes deeply-rooted in actual movements, with actual potentialities and limitations such as, for example, the population density of a demander spot of subsistence goods or the length of a journey through the desert, is left fully demonstrated as a fertile road for regional archaeology. The different stages the authors define, besides, allow foreseeing the ways in which the changes that occur in far away areas, even though these might not be directly connected, end up modifying the whole of the relationships between the axis-settlements of the network. This aspect gives the proposal the systemic characteristics Wallerstein exposed so well (1991a). However, it is not an abstract system but, instead, the actual elements that play in it their particular roles -as the size of the demand or the technologies as the llama caravan-, the ones that, in the end, make the amplified circulation possible.

“For circuit mobility to keep its rolling medium in balance, it is necessary that the fixed axis or relatively homogeneous settlements stabilize it in terms of ‘catchment of traffic’. In other words, the semi-sedentary to sedentary settlements, within the functions of the herder-merchant movement, 1) define their movement in a wide elongated territory, 2) serve as supplying or stopping places that take goods from the caravans and distribute them locally as well as regionally and interregionally, moving the goods from the caravans to other directions, and 3) supply the caravans so that they can continue their spiral trajectory. Given these conditions, the semi-sedentary to sedentary axis-settlements are merely stability poles that define the terminal spots and the direction of the circuit mobility of caravans. This necessarily implies shortage or absence of socio-political hierarchies between these axissettlements, because, if not, circuit mobility would become unbalanced. Nonetheless, this can differ in size and complexity according to each caravan’s transport capacity, and according to the different population density of each axis” (Núñez and Dillehay 1978: 12-13).

It is necessary to point out two critical aspects regarding the circuit mobility model. In first place, the authors seem to favour an inherent tendency towards systemic stability, which would imply an ‘egalitarian’ tendency between the axis-settlements inside the network. The kind of trading networks under the ‘circuit mobility’ proposal for the south-central Andes existed in other parts of the world such as Scandinavia (Kristiansen 1987), Mesoamerica (McGuire 1995; Patterson 1990; Schortman and Urban 1994), the central Andes (Patterson 1990a), Rome (Haselgrove 1987; Hedeager 1987; Nash 1987), mainland Europe (Sherratt 1992), China (Patterson 1990), and the Old World (Frank 1993). In the Near East, networks with a very similar pattern of association between oases have been developed (Kohl 1987a, 1987b; Larsen 1987; Liverani 1987; Marfoe 1987; Moorey 1987; Zaccagnini 1987). Nonetheless, it is necessary to say that, far away from leading towards the balance of their integrating parts, it is precisely unbalance, even political unbalance, what has led the populations of some areas to relate and establish commercial trades. A similar discussion was

A definitely important role would correspond to the Puna de Atacama in the scope of this regional economic space: “The axis of mayor flow established themselves between the oases of the west bottom of the Puna (V.gr. San Pedro de Atacama), at the Quebrada de Humahuaca, in the Puna oases (V.gr. Tebenquiche), and at the valleys that run from northern San Juan to south-eastern Salta, Jujuy, and the low basin of the San Francisco River. In all this 8

See following section ‘Identity’, this same Chapter.

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA produced in the scope of Old World archaeology between the defenders of the ‘centre-periphery’ model [Champion 1995 (1989); Rowlands 1987] and those who stuck up to the ‘peer-polity interaction’ model (Renfrew 1986). It has been said that the societies analyzed inside the framework of the peer-polity model include, in fact, polities that, as a whole, are marginal respect other more developed regions [Champion (1989]. Thus, what in a certain scale could be considered as an interaction network between similar units -as Núñez and Dillehay seem to be stating- might be seen as marginal when put into relationship, in a wider scale, with more developed areas, even when direct associations with these areas could have not existed. The balance between the societies that integrate certain network is not a requirement for the reproduction of such network; perhaps, it is just the opposite. It is precisely the diversity of conditions and resources with which each society counts what gives the network its dynamic.9

This way is oriented Tarragó’s version of regional interaction (1984). Adopting a Puna perspective that is closer to Krapovickas’ than the one of the just commented authors, Tarragó stresses the relevance of the permanent agricultural-herding settlements of the oases of the Altiplano for the functioning of the interaction axis that articulated the circum-Puna space. Hence, caravan development is seen as a typically Puna strategy that is related to the oasis landscape, and, this way, the author explores the history of the interactions through the presence of archaeological indicators as a way of understanding the processes of articulation and change of the circum-Puna environment. By inserting those in the interaction processes in an active manner, the framework offered by Tarragó gives relevance to the investigation of Puna oases. It is clear that, in this case, the key category for research is the oasis and not the Puna de Atacama. The approach according to which the oases of the Puna de Atacama were temporarily inhabited as provisioning stages of the trans-Puna interchange is closely related to the image of the circum-Puna environment as being constituted by balanced polities interrelated by mutual flows of goods that were transported by llama caravans. As a whole, this frame is supported by a heterogeneous gathering of interaction evidences that, nonetheless, do not concern the particular manner in which this interaction implied in the caravan model11 was made, and by an imaginary ‘ethnographic’ bond whose source is the literary genre of the Puna travellers’ accounts.12 Sanhueza has made a profound analysis of the characteristics of colonial Atacama muleteering (Sanhueza 1992). A somewhat later source, though not for that less influent, is Bowman’s text (1924). There, special emphasis is made on muleteering and mule and cattle caravans, which, as the main regional economic activity, went from the northwestern valleys of Argentina to the salt deposits of the Chilean coastal desert. As a synthetic expression of its content, the regional geographic description is, naturally, titled, “Senderos del desierto en Atacama” (1924). Beyond the wider or narrower factual backing evidence of the circuit caravan mobility interaction model in particular, the assumption of the ecologic marginality of the Puna operates, here again, as a determinant factor in the manners of occupation and economic activity. Once the marginality of the Puna has been assumed, the secondary role of the ‘Altiplano oases’ -against the ‘balance’ between the polities of the circum-Puna spaceseems a concomitant outcome.

Secondly, another critical element concerns the characterization of the oases of the Puna Salada (Puna de Atacama). To these authors, following Troll, the oases of the Altiplano do not reach the necessary conditions for permanent human settlement, and, therefore, their inhabitancy would have almost exclusively depended on their role as stages in the trans-Andean interchange. The same way as in previously considered works, the Puna de Atacama (oases of the Puna Salada in Núñez and Dillehay 1978) is understood as a homogenously disadvantaged territory from an ecological and climatic point of view. Thus, taking part in trading caravans would have been the only reason for settlement, which was temporary. This rationale implies that the caravan venture should have had to finance the temporary populations of the oases of the Puna Salada. These would have not only been totally dependent on caravans for their subsistence, but, also, would have formed part of the circum-Puna societies during the time of the year when caravans did not circulate, and would have gone to the oases just during trading periods. This statement is opposed by the evidences of labour force investment in agriculture in the oases of the Puna Salada, as well as by the long continuity of their household patterns. Besides, the financial cost of caravans would have been even higher if we need to include a subsidy for a group of intermediate populations. Though it sure is a feature of economically expansionist states, such an investment in the financing of commercial stages is not characteristic of non-state trading networks. This would be, then, a contradictory statement to the absence of state societies in the region10 willing to finance the network of stages. It is as well anyway- a contradictory statement to the idea of balance between non-hierarchically related societies.

Identity By beginnings of this century, Ambrosetti had already assigned the finds of Antofagasta de la Sierra to the expansion of the Calchaquí civilization towards the Puna (Ambrosetti 1905). On his side, Boman endorsed the

9 Going back to European examples, it has been pointed out, regarding Mediterranean prehistory, that world-system kind approaches provide procedural weight to the contacts between societies, but that these only work when a correct evaluation of the socioeconomic structure -both central and peripheral- exists. 10 Meaning, before Tawantinsuyu.

11

This aspect will be broadly developed in Chapter 7, this same volume. See section ‘The Puna de Atacama as Object: History, Literature, and Nation’, this same Chapter. 12

11

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA southern Puna to the ‘Diaguitas’ [Boman 1991 (1908)]. Both interpretations were made over the same group of finds, which had been made in Antofagasta de la Sierra and had been mainly recorded by Gerling, and they seem to be coincident. But this apparent similitude hides deep differences. Ambrosetti considered the inhabitants of the Calchaquí valleys had never given themselves up to the Inca Empire, while Boman included the whole northwestern Argentinean archaeology in the -as the Inka polity was named then- ‘Peruvian civilization’. Consequently, the ethnographic or ethnohistoric cultures of the northwest were, to Boman, the outcome of the influence of the not-so-ancient Andean Altiplano cultures (Boman 1991; Lejeal and Boman 1907). Instead, to Ambrosetti, who was probably more nationalist than friend of quick diffusions, the Calchaquí civilization was an outcome of a long original historic trajectory that had nothing to owe to the Incas (Ambrosetti 1902, 1903). Underlying the discussion, there were different visions of the pre-Hispanic history running; these, had structured enough pre-theoretical assumptions13 so to force their protagonists to exercise their imagination in order to make the new evidences suitable. Thus, Ambrosetti came to interpret the Inca materials of La Paya as having a Chilean origin (trade with an Inca-dominated Chile seemed more neutral than the direct influence of a powerful empire; Ambrosetti 1908), while Boman, entrenched at the National Museum of Buenos Aires, could have never accepted that the cultural differences represented something more than mere variations of a same subject (Boman and Greslebin 1923). In fact, the explicit intentionality of the publication of Ambrosetti’s works at La Paya was directly related to this polemic. His thesis, considered a monumental landmark to the archaeology of the Argentinean northwest by historiography, had been written to “answer with the whole of the expressed facts to the work that was presented to the Congress of Quebec (1906) by my colleagues, Mr. León Lejeal and Mr. Eric Boman, “La Question Calchaquie”, in which, to my judgment, they have treated the subject with some precipitation and frivolity” (Ambrosetti 1908: 530). One of the four results that were enumerated by Ambrosetti, which he derived from the “whole of the facts”, was the “discovery of the route -from the Pacific, through the Puna de Atacama- of the objects of Peruvian type that were eventually found in the Calchaquí region, what tells us of an already existing trading flow between the North of Chile and the Calchaquí valleys, in a time we cannot precise yet” (Ambrosetti 1908: 530). With this, he established one of the roles to which the Puna de Atacama has most frequently been related to.

1944), and Vignati (1931, 1938) took care of reproducing one of the most extreme images archaeology has ever had regarding the Puna. For example, almost in the same words Moreno had used nearly four decades before him, Casanova wrote: “Summing up, the weather with its huge variations and terrible white winds, the lack of water, the barrenness of the land, and the inconvenience of the height, make the Puna little suitable for human life, which hardly finds inducements for settling in these unfriendly regions where the struggle for life often becomes tragic” (Casanova 1939: 256). Technical and expressive poverty, lack of stylistic personality, place of passage for migratory movements, cultural deadlock: such are the common qualities with which the archaeology of the Puna was qualified. Thus, when in 1948 Bennett and his students rehearsed an influent synthesis of the archaeology of the Argentinean northwest, they had nothing to add for the Puna de Atacama to what had already been said (Bennett et. al. 1948). The only known site in the area, Antofagasta de la Sierra, was grouped in a “transitional culture” with other sets that came from Kipón and La Paya and were equally resistant to this classification. One of the distinctive elements of this transitional culture was the development of the representation on wood (Sommer 1948). This feature was related to the definition of the “Puna complex” in the northern area, in which a series of sets of difficult classification within the historic-cultural categories of the Puna de Jujuy was grouped (Bennett 1948). The poverty of the available information regarding the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama in the midtwentieth century, along with the sparingness -concerning stylistic diacritics- of the few archaeological groups, ended up forcing the North American synthesizers to a commitment solution: ‘Puna complex’ and ‘transitional culture’ were categories that allowed classifying the impersonalized archaeological Puna finds under apparently neutral, though empty of any historical content,14 labels. It was not until 1952 when a new original research was carried out in the Puna de Atacama, with Krapovickas -by that time an advanced undergraduate student- in charge (Krapovickas 1955 and Haber 2000). Krapovickas’ finds were made in six different and stratigraphically independent burials, but he arrived to the conclusion that all of them had been manufactured “by a same native group and during a same period of time”, based on the following similarities: (a) “the shape of the burials does not vary in any case”, (b) “necklace beads, metallic materials, and traces of paint -every time with the same characteristics- have been found in all the finds”, (c) “there are shapes that repeat themselves, such as the jars […] that have appeared in burials I and V”, and, finally, (d) “the common denominator […] is constituted by decoration, which repeats itself with identical patterns

The panorama stayed the same during several decades; the archaeological research of the Puna de Atacama remained null. The few archaeologists interested in the Puna focused themselves in the Puna de Jujuy. Among them, Debenedetti (1930), Casanova (1937-1938, 1939, 13

14 A similar criticism has been provided by González and Pérez (1985: 97).

Meaning, previous to theory; in this case, ethno-cultural.

12

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA and technique in every case, whatever the shape is” (Krapovickas 1955: 39).

In his following synthesis of Puna archaeology, Krapovickas dedicated a little bit more of attention to Tebenquiche, though not without a previous clarification:

This way, he set up the grounds for the creation of Tebenquiche as a cultural and historical totality, labour he would improve in following works. At last, Tebenquiche was closed as a group of cultural traits: underground burials with stone walls, rough pottery with unfired painting applications, predominating shapes of subcylindrical beakers and bowls. The description of the agricultural features and the geographical isolation would be added, and the whole package would be assigned to the Early period for its stylistic associations with the published material from San Pedro de Atacama (the Black Polished San Pedro cylindrical beakers and Tarragó’s15 seriation [1968]) and Candelaria (the facemodelled jar). Sadly, the available information regarding the finds already excavated by Weisser in Tebenquiche in 1923 did not allow Krapovickas mediating the homogeneity the materials of the burials he dug in 1952 presented. In Weisser’s burial 2, located in the opposite side of the river to that where Krapovickas made his excavations, a set that included Venetian glass beads (besides a pot with a Caspinchango foot among other elements), which undoubtedly placed it in the HispanicIndigenous period, had been recovered (Haber 2000). Even though there is Hispanic-Indigenous material -and in a much smaller quantity, Late and Inka- on the surface of the valley, the short period during which Krapovickas stayed at Tebenquiche obstructed him a more detailed observation.

“The excavations we made at Tebenquiche in 1952 were our initiation both in field and lab research. The limited instruction we could obtain regarding archaeological techniques in our country by those years made the works of Ambrosetti at La Paya served us as main and almost single model. Because of this, since the site has not been investigated again except for a group of mountain climbers from Salta, the accurate information we have mostly comes from exhaustively excavated burials, notes taken while researching, and materials we studied in 1953” (Krapovickas 1968: 243). It was at the International Congress of Americanists held in Mar del Plata where Krapovickas showed the image of Tebenquiche that would prevail until now. Let us see firstly the weight of the site’s potential: “It is difficult to establish a media population for Tebenquiche. We do not have precise data about the quantity of homes or the total extension of the ruins. As we are dealing with dispersed houses between agricultural fields, the quantity should have been low if put in relationship with other ruins, for example Quilmes or Tilcara. But, making the comparison with current Antofalla, and watching the appearance of the deposit with its so wide agricultural fields, the houses, the burials, and the so relevant archaeological material recovered, we can risk to fix, randomly, a minimum population of about 100 inhabitants at the time of the site’s blossoming” (Krapovickas 1968: 244; emphasis by the author).

Between 1958 and 1959, Krapovickas redefined the Puna Complex by introducing traits such as predominance of rough pottery, a few peculiar shapes -among them, little flat vases, pitchers with asymmetric handles, and pots with conic handles-, Humahuaca and Inka influences, and plenty of wooden objects (spades, spoons, etc.). These characteristics led him to assign it to the Late period of the northern Puna. On the southern Puna, he characterized the set of Antofagasta de la Sierra as Late and Inka, and Tebenquiche’s, as previous to this and more related to the north-western valleys of Argentina: “The materials from Tebenquiche, a deposit we consider chronologically earlier than Antofagasta de la Sierra, do not have any connection to those from the rest of the Puna. Here, there is a primacy of ceramic objects, which are the most characteristic thing in this deposit. The shapes of the pottery and the burials indicate they are related to archaeological elements of the central area of our northwest” (Krapovickas 1958-1959: 110-111). He finally noticed that, “with a single known deposit, we cannot determine the geographical limits of the cultural facies herein represented” (Krapovickas 1958-1959: 111). But what turned out already unquestionable by that time was that Tebenquiche represented a same “cultural facies”.

After a description of the finds, and with the plus of some architectural details extracted from a newspaper article that had been written after the mountain climbing expedition, Krapovickas first defined Tebenquiche culture by demarcating its chronological limits, skipping the second burial that had been excavated by Weisser whose field notebook (Haber 2000) and materials were already at the Museum of La Plata- in 1923, of obvious colonial period: “Though the number of burials that have been found is limited and none stratigraphic excavation was made, there are no doubts left regarding the chronologic position of Tebenquiche. There are no Inca or Hispanic materials. There are no materials that might be considered Late either. The remains we are describing are from an Early epoch” (Krapovickas 1968: 248). Having already characterized the economy, the pottery, the metallurgy, the architecture, the burials, and the chronology, all that was left to do was declaring Tebenquiche culture, whose unfired paintings on plain black pottery would become, not having a better one, its defining trait: “Since the work we have published in 1955 offers, for the first time, a uniform set of materials, basically characterized by plain black pottery with

15 Tarragó’s seriation for Atacama was confirmed afterwards, through TL dating (Berenguer et al. 1988).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA ware, González dedicated a brief mention to Tebenquiche. There, he considered the possibility of the “Tebenquiche type” -that, we understand, refers to the decoration of plain grey pottery with unfired painting applications- corresponding to a local style that might have probably been previous to the Christian Era (González 1977: 168).

unfired ritual paintings, we believe ourselves authorized enough, given the priority rules, to give the name of the deposit to the cultural entity it represents, and, this way, we indicate the existence of the culture of Tebenquiche” (Krapovickas 1968: 249; emphasis by the author). It is not uninteresting that, despite the efforts to reduce Tebenquiche to a “cultural package” of traits and when everything seemed to indicate an essentialist image of such a culture had finally been built, its characteristic element was said to be the plain black pottery, which is a type of pottery that possibly does not have anything actually particular in it, and that, in the end, remains particularized just through the application of paint in a ritual context. This means that, even when the materials from Tebenquiche proved little abundant in idiosyncratic elements with which to enounce a particular archaeological culture, cultural-historical archaeology was able to build the local culture’s essence upon the result of a more contextualized rather than essentially determined practice. Serrano had already stated: “Even though the information on Tebenquiche is still insufficient, there are reasons to believe in its individuality as a culture” (Serrano 1967: 22).

Shortly after, nonetheless, he gave a different opinion: “A fact of great interest is that the same tradition in economy and high altitude agricultural production techniques maintains itself unaltered for centuries; instead, the pottery of all ages is either intrusive, or a bad adaptation of ware types of the surrounding valleys. This means a local ware tradition with its own traits was never established” (González 1979: 11). The cultural poverty of the Puna, in comparison with that of the surrounding valleys, was explicitly considered a trait that was cause of the ecologic marginality in such a way that culture was naturalized through the incorporation of the image of nature (meaning, the Puna de Atacama): “Culture was too much adapted to the difficult Puna environment, which did not vary for a long time, not to show itself reluctant to the incorporation of new techniques” (González 1979: 11). Moreover, González related ecologic and cultural marginality to commercial circulation in a same argumentation: “In this area [the Puna], we find reflected the sequences of the surrounding valleys, from Orilla Norte (Condorhuasi II) to Ciénaga, Aguada, etc., which do not seem to have integrated themselves to the local culture at any time. Most of the decorated pottery was obtained through trade, not becoming part of the local techniques” (González 1979: 11). This way, the Puna de Atacama was a marginal nature that explained the need of adaptation to it, and, thus, resulted in an equally marginal culture. But, as if culture was not enough for dealing with the Puna, Puna inhabitants had to depend on trade with luckier peoples.

As main source of evidence for the cultural-historical conceptualization of the Puna de Atacama, it could be assumed that Tebenquiche provided a rich and solid set of data. But it did not. The archaeology of Tebenquiche was based on very few though fundamental features that had already been pointed out in Krapovickas’ thesis (1955), and reaffirmed in his following synthesis works (1959, 1968, 1984). These are (a) the extreme geographical isolation, (b) the mayor agricultural development that can be seen in the site’s canals, enclosed fields, and agricultural terraces, (c) the assignation of the site to beginnings of the Early period given the identification of characteristics of geographical Atacama, not necessarily equivalent to ethnic Atacama, (d) the wealth of burial goods, and (e) the presence of unfired painting applications. That is to say, it appeared as a contradictory set of evidence in the sense that, despite its marginality and isolation and despite its so ancient temporal assignation, it was a plain proof of the early reached cultural, economic, and technological development.

In 1983, González characterized Early period cultures as culturally diversified and particular, and among them, he mentioned Tebenquiche (González 1983). In a later work, González spoke of “Kipón-Tebenquiche culture”, which “[…] has a really distinctive black or grey pottery. Some of its shapes seem to relate to wares from the Loa River and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The presence of big right-angled pipes relates this culture to complexes of the western forests such as San Francisco. Nevertheless, due to its habitat at the Calchaquí valley and the Puna, Kipón-Tebenquiche seems to correspond to an Andean adaptation to height” (González 1992: 143). He mentioned16 “a few dates” obtained by Díaz and Arena, which allowed him situating it “around the 300 before the Christian Era.” Finally, regarding the economy of Kipón-Tebenquiche, he said that “it must have been one of high altitude agriculture in association with an intense exploitation of the llama” (González 1992: 143).

Everything seems to suggest Krapovickas was unsuccessful in transmitting his enthusiasm over the development he watched at Tebenquiche. González, the major systematizer of Argentinean north-western archaeology, did not dedicate Tebenquiche more than occasional mentions, which described it, though with different degrees of weight, as an isolated and marginal oasis whose occupation was as ancient as monotonous was its culture. Tebenquiche was not mentioned in his first regional syntheses (for example, González 1955, 1963), and it was only named together with Laguna Blanca in the book he wrote in collaboration with Pérez (González and Pérez 1985). In his work on preColumbian art, maybe thanks to the artistic frugality of its

16

14

Though he did not quote them.

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA Synthesizing, González has considered Tebenquiche, and by extension the whole of the Puna during the Early period, as an isolated oasis that was inhabited by agriculturists and herders of little inventive, related to the surrounding valleys through trade, and thanks to which they obtained every object that evidences the comparatively higher cultural development of the more ecologically apt regions. Puna culture was, to González, as deserted as its landscape, and, for sure, equally sterile. Apparently, the little charming decoration with unfired paintings, though it might have been enough to define an autonomous cultural entity (Tebenquiche or KipónTebenquiche), has not deserved to be included in the ancient lineage of the most developed and dynamic cultures of the Valliserrana region: “(KipónTebenquiche) does not seem to show major continuity during the ‘Middle Period’” (González 1992: 143)17.

place in the cultural history were the logical consequences in the archaeological interpretation of the Puna de Atacama. Summing up, even though throughout the history of research the different authors have privileged, according to different theoretical interests, one or another theme in their archaeological studies on the Puna, a sole representation of the Puna de Atacama has operated as relevant assumption in the interpretation of the preHispanic past of the region. The Puna de Atacama, understood as an extremely marginal region, has given the researchers a framework in which history has been condemned to constantly repeat the same scheme: struggle for subsistence. In one pouring of the research, this, understood as nature domination, has constituted the fate of human populations. The commercial articulation with more favoured regions has been stressed by other approaches, while it has also been considered that, as a result of the efforts to dominate the untamed Puna, culture would have developed little inventive and creativity, leading to little appreciable cultural identities. All this does not invalid the work or interpretations of the authors that have worked on regional archaeology. They have to be considered in relationship to the interpretation of specific archaeological evidences. Anyhow, the persistence of the image of marginality regarding the Puna de Atacama cannot be explained by referring it to the groups of data or specific theoretical positions involved, or, at least, not exclusively. Such image does not come from the data; it influences its interpretation. It does not come from specific theoretical frameworks either, even when they could be more or less concordant to it; it invades them by being reproduced in the different approaches.

Krapovickas pondered the early agricultural development, but he could not integrate Tebenquiche culture within the more general cultural-historic panorama of the region. Thus, Tebenquiche went on gradually loosing relevance, even in his own following syntheses of Puna archaeology, in which the evidences of the Puna de Jujuy were getting heavier in detriment of the south. But, on the other hand, and with his feet more in the Puna than on the valleys, Krapovickas provided a critical view towards the disqualifying lowlander perspective. González did not do any better with Tebenquiche. Even though he counted with a more including scheme of regional archaeology, the archaeology of Tebenquiche remained reluctant to the classifications that were oriented to describe the history of regional archaeological cultures. Curiously, González reproduced for Tebenquiche what Ambrosetti had enounced for the Puna de Atacama (Ambrosetti 1905): cultural inferiority in relationship to the surrounding areas, commercial dependency on the richer valleys, and, finally, mediatory role between the most important poles of cultural development at both sides of the Puna. González seems to have considered that the difficult adaptation to the Puna environment implied the cost of an extreme cultural atavism. But it is not about González simply reproducing Ambrosetti towards the ends of the twentieth century, but, instead, about both of them being influenced by the same assumed scheme: the Puna de Atacama as marginal landscape.

In the preceding discussion and with a purely heuristic aim, a systematic thematic organization has been preferred. But, through the diverse thematic approaches, we can notice up to what extent the different ways into the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama take for granted the same assumption: marginal nature. This has not remained unseen for many authors that have pointed out, implicitly or explicitly, the limits of the image of nature that is implicit in the Puna de Atacama as a geographical category (Aschero 1988, 1994; Isla 1992; Krapovickas 1968, 1984; Krapovickas et al. 1980; Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas 1973; Pérez Gollán 1994; Tarragó 1984). Since the beginnings of the twentieth century, archaeology has adopted the designation and the meaning of the Puna de Atacama as a given object; thus, the geographically marginal nature of the Puna de Atacama was assumed as a geographic piece of data, that is, as something natural and not as a historic construction. That way and due to the naturalization of the geographic object, the ahistoric nature of marginality remains imposed to the whole history. In the following sections of

Culture -that second nature- was not enough for dominating the natural nature and left, thus, both untamed; the Puna de Atacama and its culture were subsided by better provided -in nature and culturevalleys. A little developed cultural entity and a secondary 17

In his most recent work, Kipón-Tebenquiche is named among “the most characteristic Early cultures”; “it had a settlement pattern and a funerarian of particular traits, of Andean traits such as an early gold metallurgy, the use of llamas, and specific cultivations” (González 1998: 283).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA this Chapter, it will be demonstrated18 that the Puna de Atacama is a historically constructed category, previous to archaeology, and incorporated to it through geographical descriptions. The Puna de Atacama has operated as assumed objective nature in the archaeological interpretations of the past and has been, because of that, naturalized. It is now clear that the domesticity of the Puna de Atacama integrates this category as an assumption.

dominion of the Bolivian Republic. Since the Bolivian independence in 1825, the Corregimiento of Atacama and, in it, the Puna de Atacama, the Atacama Desert, and the Pacific coast with capital at San Pedro de Atacama until 1829, started depending from Bolivia too. That year, the Bolivian port of Cobija that used to be called the ‘Atacama Port’ was made capital of the Litoral under the name of Lamar (Conti 1995; Delgado and Göbel 1995). The economic orientation seems to have been then redirected towards the export port, making the Puna de Atacama an intermediate area for the circulation of goods between this port and the northern provinces of the Confederation, politically distanced from Chile during Rosas’ hegemony. Thus, the Puna oases were compulsory stages of the intense mule and cattle traffic that went from the Calchaquí valley, Belén, and Fiambalá to San Pedro de Atacama, and from there, to Cobija (Ambrosetti 1902, 1904; Bowman 1924; Conti 1995). The oases of the Antofalla salt lake served in the Fiambalá route, very likely through Chaschuil and the crossings of San Buenaventura range, and in the Calchaquí route, through Luracatao and Incahuasi valleys (Holmberg 1988 [1900]). Thousands of cattle heads went through the Puna looking for the Pacific, funnelling an intense trade that was external to the Confederation. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the exports of cattle from Salta and mules from Catamarca went through a period of strong increase (Conti 1989, 1995; Madrazo 1995-1996) that kept on until beginnings of the twentieth century thanks to the apex of the saltpetre industry. The province of Atacama took active part in what has been characterized as ‘seasonal articulation’ to commerce through a major Puna resource: the llama. Muleteering was closely related to salt commerce, cargos, and the descending of mineral from the mines to the mills that was being generated by the nineteenth century Bolivian mine apex (Platt 1987)19. This trade articulation was only partially a response to tributary pressures, because, until ends of the century, it actually was one of the economic strategies put into practice by the Altiplano groups. Trade articulation and peasant production were skilfully combined by Puna inhabitants forming a same economic sphere. The ‘liberal’ politics towards the end of the century would have consequences in this realm for they intended to change this articulation (Delgado and Göbel 1995; Platt 1987). Maybe the outpost of the land market over the Puna can be seen in the framework of such conjuncture. Towards the end of Bolivian sovereignty, a fact that would have some consequences for the demarcation of the territorial pretensions was raised.

The Puna de Atacama as Object: History, Literature, and Nation The south-central Andes widen between the main eastern and western ranges delimiting an extensive plateau that goes from the knot of Vilcanota or La Raya (Peru), to the San Francisco crossing (in the limit between the Argentinean province of Catamarca and the Region III of Chile). Geographers (Feruglio 1946; Troll 1980) divide this plateau in three sectors: (a) the normal or humid Puna -or the Bolivian or Aymara Altiplano-, including southeastern Peru, western Bolivia, and north-eastern Chile; (b) the dry Puna, including the Puna de Jujuy and the southwest of Bolivia; and (c) the salty Puna or Puna de Atacama. Also referred to as Argentinean Puna, the term Puna de Atacama is nevertheless the most used (at least in the most recent archaeological literature), making reference, thus, to already past territorial relationships. To take the Puna de Atacama as a given fact, however, might lead to believe there is something in it that defines it as object, with all the necessary risks such essentialism would bring about (Keesing 1990; Vayda 1990). An objectivist description of the Puna de Atacama would create the illusion of dealing with an object beyond its historic determinations. And, since the subjective perception of the landscape is one of the dimensions to be deepened in here, it is absolutely necessary not to reify an objective ‘nature’, but to see, instead, how it has been historically constructed. Even when the interest is focused on the preHispanic past of the region, the subjective preunderstandings of the knowledgeable subject must be objectified. It is better to begin, hence, by the denomination of the object. The designation of a vast region as Puna de Atacama might produce a feeling of unity that, at the same time, would separate it from the surrounding areas. Nevertheless, this is a relatively recent term. The term Puna de Atacama designates an object that, as such, only began to be constructed during the nineteenth century.

“In the year 1868, colonel Severo Melgarejo brought to public auction the grazing grounds and marshes of Antofagasta de la Sierra for a total of 11,226 pesos Bolivian currency, which went into the Bolivian treasure, in the city of La Paz, previous inventory and appraisement by the commissioner experts of that

With the dissolution of the Spanish empire in the Americas -and particularly with that of its Río de la Plata Viceroyalty, and despite the pretensions of Salta, the southern Altiplano as a whole remained under the 18

19 For colonial precedents of the spatial articulation of the Andes and the role of Puna muleteering, see Assadourian (1983), and Sanhueza (1992).

With the purpose of it ceasing to appear as the argument’s assumption so to become its empiric backing.

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA republic. That same date, the purchaser’s representative was put in possession of the sold lands, having been visited all and every one of the twenty marshes (vegas) that were enumerated in the sale deed, which contained a general statement for which the property that was being transferred by the Bolivian government included the extension of fifty leagues around” (Cerri 1906: 86; original emphasis).

led to talk about “a cultural desert and the material wealth” (Podgorny 1997: 51)21. Through the tales of travellers and explorers, the idea of the Puna de Atacama as a geographical object was finally created. Such idea was built in association with the exploration of the limits of the new South American nations. The space of the Puna de Atacama had remained in the southern margins of Bolivian territory; then, for a short period, in the northeast of Chilean territory; since 1899, in the north-western margin of Argentinean territory. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the new South American states, in open process of consolidation, searched to expand their territories towards the marginal and less occupied zones, native territories in their majority.

Through diplomatic means, the Argentinean Republic claimed the territory of the Puna de Atacama for itself, claim that was acknowledged by Bolivia due to the prewar situation the country was facing against Chile. As a consequence of the Pacific War, the south of Peru and the west of Bolivia were joined to Chilean territory. Within this plunder, there was the Puna de Atacama. With the previous Bolivian acknowledgement of the Argentinean sovereignty over this territory, Chile accepted to go under the arbitral decision of the U.S., whose demarcation Act was signed on March 24th, 1899, accepting the Argentinean bordering proposal (Cerri 1906: 13-14).

The territory that was to the west of the Calchaquí valleys started to be called Puna de Atacama because it was the description of a landscape and a jurisdictional attribution. The puna was a Quechua landscape category that was widely used during the Viceroyalty for describing very high lands (over the 3,500 m asl), with vast plains, generally of little developed basins, and without seashore. From the inhabited centres of the valleys, the Puna was a territory that was marginal, little inhabited, and generally related to the rest only through the provisioning of specific resources -such as camelids, salt, or some other mineral-, or an obstacle that had to be passed through for reaching the trans-Andean markets. The puna was not a territory itself but a descriptive category of the landscape that, the same as the plain, the valley, or others, did not name a particular place but described it and assigned it, the same as it happened with the plains of La Rioja or the valley of Catamarca. The same way as the north-eastern area of the Puna was called Puna de Jujuy -meaning the type of landscape that is called puna and that is jurisdiction of the city of Jujuy-, the western sector of the Puna, wider and drier, was called Puna de Atacama meaning the type of landscape that is called puna and that is jurisdiction of the town of Atacama. In other occasions, the same way of talking was used for the Punas of Salta and Catamarca, probably referring to the puna sectors that were closer to the capitals of the Calchaquí valleys. From the perspective of the people of San Pedro de Atacama, by that time Bolivian jurisdiction, it had sense to name a wide territory that included the ancient Atacama jurisdictions of Susques and Incahuasi as well as the former Catamarca jurisdictions of Antofagasta and El Peñón, under the embracing term of Puna de Atacama, for through the apparently objective designation of the territory, it was actually being assigned to its own jurisdiction. The denomination Puna de Atacama, the

The territory of the Puna de Atacama -plus the additive of part of the department of La Poma, Salta Province, in whose locality San Antonio de los Cobres they established the capital- was made National Territory under the name of Los Andes (Figure 2.1). It was administratively divided in four departments: (a) Antofagasta de la Sierra to the south, conformed by the marshes of Antofagasta and “the hamlets of Mojones, Chorrillos, Carachipampo, and Peñón” (Cerri 1906: 90); (b) Santa Rosa de los Pastos Grandes, “that hugs all the known borates of the territory and the hamlets of Pastos Chicos, Catua, and Sey” (Cerri 1906: 90); (c) Susques “that includes the hamlets of Coranzuli, Toro, Olaroz Grande, Olaroz Chico, and big part of the great salt lake of Caucharí” (Cerri 1906: 90); and (d) San Antonio de los Cobres, of which the first governor of Los Andes said it was a “fraction of lands worst than the ones of the Puna, given away by the province of Salta with the purpose of establishing in that spot the Capital of the Territory”, adding in the following line: “The mistake has been consummated” (Cerri 1906: 91). It was throughout the nineteenth century that the term and the idea of the Puna de Atacama as a geographical unity were elaborated. Already in 1858, the denomination ‘Andes de Atacama’ appears in du Graty’s map in what could correspond to the high lands of the Puna, and, more to the north, the legend ‘Deserté (région inhabité)’20 designates what would be the Puna de Jujuy, the most densely inhabited area of that province (Figure 2.2; Paz 1992; Podgorny 1997). The author, far from being a disinterested foreigner, became one of the main propaganda agents of the Confederation’s wealth against potential European investment men through a logic that

21 Even though the author does refer to it in the text, already in Latzina’s map (Latzina 1890), every mention to the uninhabited disappears. Notice, however, that it is in a French edition of an Argentinean geography text already published in Spanish, where information about the political-administrative organization of the Republic, its natural wealth, its communication channels (trains), and its international trade abound.

20 Also notice that a settlement called ‘Antofagasta’ appears directly to the south of ‘L. Blanca’, in the road that goes from ‘Tinogasta’, ‘Gil’, and ‘Pampa’, to ‘S. Marie’, ‘S. Carlos’, and ‘Caltchaquí´.

17

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 2.1: Francisco Guerrini’s political division map of the Government of Los Andes (Guerrini 1906). Notice the imprecision of the cartographic representation and the shortage of cartographic details. The southern limit of the Government -limit with Catamarca province- has been represented, due to the lack of greater knowledge about the area, with a winding line. As an interesting detail, notice that the meridian system is numbered from the Observatory of the city of Córdoba and not from Greenwich.

18

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA

Figure 2.2: Detail of du Garty’s “Carte de la Confédération Argentine” (Podgorny 1997). Notice the denomination ‘Andes de Atacama’ in the area that could correspond to the Puna de Atacama, and the denomination ‘Deserté’ a little bit more to the north. ‘Antofagasta’, though wrongly located, appears inside the jurisdiction of ‘Catamarca’.

19

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 2.3: Picture taken by Muniz Barreto’s expedition of 1923. “Terr.rio.de los Andes. Depto. Antofagasta. Salar Antofalla. Nocturno en la vega "El colorado" situada al Este del salar”.

through it on long mule journeys (Figure 2.3): “It is an experience of every traveller that the mule follows its instincts or its smell with more certainty than men for finding the place of rest, joining the pack-train, or finding it down the roads, if it is left in total freedom. Appealing to this last resource and handing myself completely in to the animal’s instinct, I’ve crossed abysses and overcome precipices I would have avoided in the middle of the day just at the sight of so many dangers and the reckless of such a boldness” (San Román 1896: 278).

same as the idea of geographical unity of the territory named that way, are a nineteenth century creation. As it can be seen in the literature that was produced by travellers and explorers -most of them directly or indirectly related to the delimitation of the international border lines of the area-, the concept Puna de Atacama won acceptance in a context of quarrelling about limits in an area that was not susceptible of being demarcated by the principle of watershed division, and that was at that time characterized by its plateau-like nature and its closed basin hydrography; the basins of Guayatayoc in Jujuy and Laguna Blanca in Catamarca did not integrate the Puna de Atacama for they had already been incorporated to their respective provincial territories and, besides, because their more noticeable relative humidity and vegetation separated them from the basins that were situated towards the west.

The perception of the landscape and the penuries of the trip find themselves conflated in this genre, which fatally appeals to literary expressions as a way of transmitting its subjective experience to the reader. “In this desolated plateau, everything appeared in light and pale colours, from the far away white of the snows that could be seen in the distance and the mate white of borate veins, to the ashy shades of sodium nitrate and the nearer grey bold hillocks, or to the pale-green note of the big stains of shrubs and other woody Cordillera plants that lived there. All this, surrounded by a diaphanous atmosphere, produced a feeling of inexplicable sadness and oppression.” “Happily, the days we employed in our work went fast, until at last, the first rains of the month of February, which followed some strong winds of white and salty dust clouds, made us hurry the return.” (Ambrosetti 1902: 32).

If the concept Puna de Atacama was created by the travellers and explorers of the second half of the nineteenth century and beginnings of the twentieth, it was through the texts they wrote as testimonies of their journeys that the Puna de Atacama was described and characterized -and, thus, built- as an object of interest for the national states and their urban societies. Travellers and explorers built the Puna de Atacama with the narrative issues with which they delineated their stories. The most powerful and influent motif of the travellers’ literature is precisely the experience of the journey. The Puna de Atacama is known by travelling 20

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA Let’s continue the march; we have to climb over a path that is called ‘of the foothills’. Little by little you are getting higher; you are already at a height of one thousand meters above the bottom of the valley; you form a 70 degree angle whose vertex is your mule; Beware of the vertigo! Let the mule follow the march to its will; trust on it; it will take you with unbelievable confidence to the top, no matter how high and craggy it might be.

Even Moreno, in his quick ‘anthropo-geographical’ review of the national territory, exceeds in qualifications and tropes when he arrives to the Puna de Atacama: “Volcanic rocks predominate in the high lands, and the scene seems now one from a dead world. With its lavas, ashes, sharpen black and grey broken stones that the running water has never softened, and strong winds blowing almost continuously, these sterile and ruined lands are apparently not suitable for permanent human settlement; ...” (Moreno 1901: 584).

You are at the top; that is, two thousand meters over the starting point. The vegetation has disappeared, the stone introduces itself to you in all its sad nudity; an over warming aridity starts. The icy and strong wind hits you cruelly in the face. The rush of the valley is reduced to little strings of water that come out from the cracks or marshes at the bottom of huge outstanding rocks. Come on! We have to forget the fatigue; curiosity holds us up, a sole thought is fixed in our mind: what will there be at the other side of the mountain?

The experience of the journey, with its sacrifices and dangers, becomes the object of the narration to such an extent that Zeballos, having ‘travelled’ across the Puna through the reading of Cerri’s text, writes him: “I have the bones crushed, the eyes irritated for the sands that float in the golden air, the complexion cracked for the implacable north wind, and my nervous system disturbed for those mortal jumps of the thermometer, of 70º in six hours. I have the “puna” or the “soroche”, my general. And, what shall we eat tomorrow, and the day after, and during the whole year, there where the cows don’t fatten and sometimes don’t even live, and where it is not possible to cultivate anything either and only “salares” (I guess that means salt lakes) and salt is what the land gives us, with its stony grounds, sands, and arid mountains, insistently?” (Zeballos 1906: 5-6). The image of the Puna that the texts of the travellers create in their readers is the one of the journey through the desert. Guido y Spano writes to Cerri sending him his description: “When I least expected it, you have made me travel; picturing myself following you through the brave region you paint us with such lively colours, only comparable to the one of Dante going through his fall to the underworld, with the difference, nonetheless, that you, instead of going down to the abyss, have gone up to craggy heights, crossing deserted moors, where as you picture it, “loneliness and silence rule everywhere...” (Guido y Spano 1906: 8).

You won’t be able to leave the thin path or you will roll with your mule over the entitled dry swamps of the slopes. From time to time, you will find a poor little shrub that asks heaven for a merciful drop of water. Deep and unforeseen cliffs cut you the miserable road, in whose bottom runs with no rumour, so not to disturb with a dissonant note the general silence, a stream of thermal or cold waters, that passes quickly so to sink, afterwards, between the more or less wide borders, festooned with green grasses, that form the so called marshes. And when the noon sun throws floods of vivid and hot light unmercifully upon you, no, you won’t find a sad shade to shelter you! It does not matter the weariness of the distressing trip, we have to continue the march if we want to get there by the end of the day, which cannot be abbreviated because your mules risk to die of hunger or get sick for the harmful grasses that abound in many parts of that singular territory.

Because of that, and with the purpose of describing the Puna de Atacama and at the same time understanding the influence the motif of the journey as narrative form has had in the conformation of such description, it is convenient to reread the beginning of Cerri’s text, with which the general introduced the recently incorporated territory to the people and the national authorities.

You finally arrive to the obliged rest: an oasis. Do you believe that, fortunately, it is a piece of picturesque land as those that Holmberg has so lively described in his notable conferences? What disenchantment! One or two hectares of hard grasses, called puna, that surround a spring of pure and crystalline waters and the rest... shaky sand dunes, stony ground valleys, mountains of nude rocks, and deep precipices formed by big rolling stones that menace with falling apart!

“Follow me, not on the mule but with your imagination, that you won’t experience any feelings of cold, heat, or wind, fatigue or hunger; and we are going up a rugged and harsh valley, it doesn’t matter which one, they are all alike, that snakes between the space that is left by two echeloned and always higher cordons, which mix their plies, depressions, precipices, and spurs among each other, curled one to another by granite ties, showing one another their craggy and torturing summits that penetrate into the sky and cover themselves in the white heaps that wander and roll among them to the breezes.

Add as corollary to this abrupt picture the fact of the night awaiting you with a cold of 5 to 20 degrees below zero, according to the height in which you find yourselves, which you’ll have to bare under a simple campaign tent and, sometimes, in the open sky because the nude stone won’t let you use it, and, finally, the quick following of the four annual seasons, more or less accentuated and experienced during the 24 hours of the 21

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA day, and you will have a very rough idea of the territory of Los Andes” (Cerri 1906: 17-20).

project via the Chilean and Argentinean nations- could not just directly become dominant. The exploration trip was the first obliged step, and in it, the possibilities of including the Puna de Atacama in the project of progress were the relevant subject. This way, Maldones proposed the agricultural colonization of the department of Antofagasta de la Sierra through the construction of a canal between Antofagasta de la Sierra and Carachipampa and the concession of the lands at its sides. Other places, as Antofalla, would serve as summer pasture fields, and factories of sheep cheeses and knits would be installed. The first governor was more realistic regarding investment possibilities and, anyhow, he believed them related to scientific research. Still, he finally reveals their sense when the territory is occupied by the national state:

The desert, its roughness, its solitude, its immensity and monotony are incorporated through the exploration of its paths, travelling either on a mule or with the imagination. And, with one or the other, this extreme landscape’s dangers, whether they are real or imaginary, are incorporated as well. “The traveller cannot do without the guide; otherwise, he would undoubtedly end up lost and in danger of taking other paths of the mountain or going into the curureras22, dry swamps, or stony grounds that make the march very painful” (Cerri 1906: 34). If there is something in which travellers of various nationalities coincide, it is that the Puna de Atacama is an extreme landscape, the surest proof of the untamed nature, which provokes oddness, confusion, and horror:

“(...) in the near future, men of science, lovers of their land as myself, will go inside that remote and arid territory and rip the secrets that hide between the crags of its mountains off, so to deliver them to the research of tomorrow’s studious youth and to the speculation of those who wish to use their money right” (Cerri 1906: 96).

“The impression that the PUNA produces in the traveller is so bizarre that it would not be believed real. One feels away from the land; it almost seems that, at the slow walk of the tired mule, one is going through a moon-like country. The nudity of this nature is horrifying: it transforms everything in dark, melancholic; one does no longer laugh; one has the chest clenched by this barely breathable air. Wherever the sight is taken, the same dark, grey, undefined shades are seen: the huge steppe, sad; yellow colour stained with green blackish spots; the grey mountains, of brutal contours, that seem to be a chaos of broken rocks if looked closely, and precursor clouds of storm in the horizon if looked from the distance. There is a completely lack of harmony. And everything sparkles in this weird air; the objects don’t have fixed contours: they are surrounded by a halo that has the colours of the solar spectre, as if they could be perceived through very strong glasses. The sky, pale blue, is hardly ever clouded. The sun rays do not find any resistance when they penetrate this air of minimum density. The light is raw; hits the eye as that of magnesium. There is no semi-darkness: just the sharp, defined, black shadow, and the incandescent, unmerciful, white light. Pictures of the Altiplano show it: the shadow is represented by a spot as black as ink; in the sunny places, the earth is so white that it seems covered with snow. There is no transition between the black and the white; when looking to these pictures, one believes in an error of exposition or turn. An absolute silence rules in the PUNA: not a sing of a bird; the few living creatures don’t make any noise and, if one goes a few steps ahead of the pack-train, nor the horse’s bell that leads the mules, neither the screams and blasphemies of the muleteers are heard: the air is so light that the vibrations of the sound are shut down almost immediately. At a 50 m distance, one has to shout really loud to be heard. A riffle shot is not heard beyond 100 m” (Boman 1991: 414-415).

“In that huge forest of nude mountains, nature has been really cheap when giving out its gifts, but, instead, metals glow with no need of rains or dews. In the insides of these mountains, there are unknown substances that only wait for the man of science to proclaim their utility. And above all, it is a piece of Argentinean land that was there, lost, since the distribution of the heritage, and that has now come back to the sovereign domain of the Nation, the flag of the fatherland waving already there ” (Cerri 1906: 97). Holmberg, from an academic more than political point of view and already known for having described too lively what to others was a deserted barren plateau (Cerri 1906), considered that “it is necessary that governments, when looking to that territory, throw away an illusion: aridity; and that they get convinced by seeing it, that it is not with the continuous disbursements of money but with the study and tidy exploitation of its soil that they will conquer its progress” [Holmberg 1988 (1900): 75-76]. And below he suggests: “... let’s not look for the elements that will serve to the development of this new Government in the privileged areas; let’s bring from the arid high plains of Tibet the Yak instead, which can compete in sobriety with the guanacos and vicuñas themselves; let’s improve the goats with the ones of those places and others more fancy, and let’s repeat the rehearsal, wrong practiced the first time, of acclimatizing the Asian camel, with which we would have improved transports by diminishing the time and increasing the loads” [Holmberg 1988 (1900): 76]. Zeballos, closer to the political project of the ruling elite, did not hesitate in writing about the Puna de Atacama with the same accent he stressed when talking about the rest of the country: “(...) there is no desert, or sterile earth, where men abound. (...) It is a matter of

Facing such a landscape (Figure 2.4), civilization western civilization as a whole or the incarnation of its 22

t.n.: galleries of fossorial rodents.

22

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA

Figure 2.4: Picture taken by Muniz Barreto’s expedition of 1923: “Vista por sobre la "Playa Negra" hacia Oeste a la queb. Antofalla”. The gleams, exposition errors, and rays come from the original negative. The image they produce seems to coincide with the literary descriptions of the landscape of the Puna de Atacama. La Plata Museum Collection.

the Earth, that is to say, it has all the appearance of not being inhabitable.

immigrants and government” (Zeballos 1906: 6). But, to make his interest as a member of that elite explicit, nothing could be clearer than his declaration: “I shall go to Antofagasta some day, appealing to my title of conqueror of the region for H. M. the Argentinean Sovereignty” (op. cit.: 7).

The definition of the nation as civilizing project implied the absorption of nature under the idea of nation. As the rest of the American nations, Argentina implied a semiotic displacement from nation-as-people to nationas-territory. In this sense, nature is the condition of possibility of the nation, and every redefinition of the nature is, at the same time, a redefinition of the nation (Olwig 1993). The incorporation of a radically desolated nature -meaning ‘not domesticated’ but, also, ‘not inhabited’, ‘not lived’- to the national territory does not only define its physical limits but also its conceptual range. This is underlined by Zeballos’ apparent irony when he calls, in his imagination, the main resource of the nation-nature -immigration- to the most extreme distance of the nature-nation -the Puna de Atacama.

That is, the Puna de Atacama was defined as object in a context of construction of national projects, in a context of demarcations from the others, whether we think them in geographical or conceptual terms. Or, putting it differently, the Puna landscape formed part of the national landscape as its most absolute other and, still, it had to be incorporated to the nation. It is because of that, that Zeballos could imagine a future of immigration for the Puna as the one he had promoted for the Pampas. But the Puna de Atacama revealed him its sense by being incorporated to the territory under which the national flag waved. Not because Zeballos really believed in an agricultural colonization as the one that was being praised by Maldones -whose project of incorporation to the provincial states was, at its time, rejected-, but, instead, because, even though the Puna de Atacama was a radically useless territory to the economic project something Cerri took care of efficiently clarifying-, it was useful as extreme manifestation of the antithesis of civilization. To Boman, the Puna seems unreal, outside

But, as the Puna de Atacama was defined as a definitely desolated and dangerous nature, its inhabitants had to be necessarily understood as part of that same picture of the landscape. The inhabitants of the Puna de Atacama were understood the same way the nature of the desert had been. Their sole existence looks like a mistake, or it just simply does not represent any change to the desolated nature of the Puna:

23

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA ever seen, and the most arid and abrupt land I have ever steeped on” (Cerri 1906: 51).

“A concentrated hate, repressed and in a somewhat latent state so to blow up at the right occasion, seems to be the dominant feeling in the soul of the Bolivian native; under the appearances of a resigned humility that gets even by harassing and finding comfort in the illusive possession of a land that he defends with his only strength, inertia, he only tries to take advantage just for himself with the not less illusive resource of denying everything”.

The population of the Puna was characterized in concordance with the description of the landscape, and, together, they configured a picture of extreme marginality if compared to the temperate and fertile environments that were considered more proper for the cultivation of civilization. The Bolivian, Chilean, and Argentinean states, by sending explorers to the Puna de Atacama, intended a survey of the limits of their national territories in times when state, territory, and nation were aspects of a single construction (Connor 1990, 1993; Cosgrove 1993; Eriksen 1993; Lyon 1994; Morphy 1993; Olwig 1993; Smith 1994). In that context, knowing the Puna de Atacama was knowing the limits of the nation: that territory and those people more radically different yet possible to be thought inside the transforming and modernizing project of the national state; that is to say, it was knowing the biggest of the challenges, the broadest range of the national project. Holmberg, after expressing a series of recommendations for the modernization of the region, ended his work on the Puna de Atacama exclaiming: “All these are the germs with which the spirit of Argentinean nationality fertilizes and regenerates” [Holmberg 1988 (1900): 77].

“How useful and charitable task is reserved to the progress of civilization among those peoples of sweet instincts and indestructible love for their traditions and unfortunate land!” (San Román 1896: 245-246). “They are restless for walking in the mountains; sober and humble, their look is smart and alive; but they are dissembling and false. Their habits, their character, and their tendencies are distinctly Bolivian, but they don’t care belonging to any of the bordering nations always that they are left alone and not charged with tithes” (Cerri 1906: 49). The picture of the inhabitants of the Puna reduces them to natural elements, as indistinguishable from landscape as reptiles, as needy in their endowments as the nature of which they are a part of, absolutely useless to progress unless they are instructed in the patriotic idea of nationality.

The reading of the texts of travellers and rulers offers a very clear view of the particular perception of those that transferred to the national society the Puna de Atacama as an experience of journey to the frontier of the nation. Thus, the geographical description of the Puna de Atacama constituted, mainly, a statute of otherness at the margins of the nation (Bandlamudi 1994; Carrier 1992; Jenkins 1994; Keesing 1990; Smedal 1992; Triandafyllidou 1998).

“The first alive specimen and model that came out to our encounter corresponded to the dirty genre in the most horrible and bizarre shape of known animal, going through the transformism from filth to a caste or variety of human species that hasn’t been classified by naturalists yet. It was a female; her head bared the weight of a thick and huge mass of hairy material that was amassed with the grease, the dust, and the garbage of eighty years; the hole of the ears filled, too, with sediments that had been deposited there maybe during the same period of time; the mouth with a green ring of chewed coca; the eyes covered with a yellowed knit of indefinable material; the breasts hanging like elongated bags to the belly; and the skin all, from feet to head, covered with hard and shiny little leaves like fish scales.

In 1943, the National Territory of Los Andes was divided in its departments: Susques (corresponding to Jujuy), Pastos Grandes and San Antonio de los Cobres (corresponding to Salta), and Antofagasta de la Sierra (corresponding to Catamarca). Hence, the national state transferred to the provinces the costs and eventual though little auspicious benefits of the economic and administrative incorporation of the territory to the national space. The province of Catamarca took even more time in handling the task. The first road to Antofagasta de la Sierra dates from the late 1970’s; until beginnings of the 1990’s, Antofagasta de la Sierra did not have autonomy or authorities chosen by the people, and the first serious attempt of instrumentation of specific state politics for the area of the Puna started in 1997 (Ministry of Production and Development of the Government of the Province of Catamarca 1997).

Near the dwelling where that human being lived -a hole between two stones, naked from every item of comfort, as if it was inhabited by a reptile-, the workers set our tent of clean cloth, crowned with a tricolour pennant that waved, happily and showily, in those airs where no emblem of patriotic idea, profane or sacred, had ever floated before” (San Román 1896: 253-254).

It was the context of delimitation of the national states in which the Puna de Atacama was built what left it its mark of marginal geography. Then, the failure of the Territory of Los Andes to incorporate the Puna de Atacama to the national economy -through its tax and market

“All this singular family was born there in the desert, between the spaces of the rocks, contemplating, stupidly and without understanding, the most beautiful sky I have

24

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA and reproduced them as pre-theoretical assumptions. As a result, and as it has been shown in the first section of this Chapter, the representations of the landscape that, historically, had a literary origin in the nineteenth century, were incorporated to the pre-understandings of the prehistoric Puna landscape.

articulation- did not do anything but countersigning the marginal imaginary with which the Puna de Atacama had been created as a geographical object. The role of anthropology in the transference and reproduction of the cultural dispositions towards the imaginary of the Puna has been recently underlined:

But it would be imprecise to say that the Puna de Atacama was a literary invention of nineteenth and early twentieth century travellers and explorers. Even though they were the ones who gave it literary shape and transferred it to the social imaginary, they had two important antecedents. The Puna de Atacama as narrated landscape has a precedent in the construction of geographical categories during the Early Colonial period, time in which the domination over the territory and its inhabitants was taken to written words for the first time.

“... the “Puna” (...), beyond the fact that it might have a precise geographic and climatic delimitation or not, is a symbolic construction and has a central role in the Argentinean “anthropological” imaginary. A variety of different kinds of anthropologists has gone through, talked, and written about the region in order to construct the “Puna culture”. It is found at the boundaries of “civilization”, in a frontier that is felt as division between “nature” and “culture”, where being from the “other side” (Bolivian) is denied and embarrassingly hidden by the Coyas themselves, inhabitants of the puna...

The available data for the Colonial period is very short in what regards the Altiplano. The references to the Puna can be interpreted as an extension of those made to the neighbouring populated centres. In the beginnings of the colony -ends of the sixteenth century-, at least the north of the Puna de Atacama formed part of the Corregimiento of Atacama and Lipes, but it can be presumed that the occupation was not very effective, because Spanish installations were difficult to establish and natives did not pay any tribute (Julien 1993; Tellez 1984). The proximity to the most resistant region of Tucumán, the Calchaquí valleys, allows presuming that, on the surrounding areas of the Puna, the Spanish presence was more formal than effective (Núñez 1992).

A region where there is no ‘history’, where processes are like geological movements, where the landscape and the ontological appeal to some concept allow making the differences exotic. A region where the paradigm of homogeneity is invented” (Isla 1992: 26). Neither must the classic bucolic images of children with faces hurt by the cold and the wind, llamas and vicuñas, and sad music from flutes and pan-pipes filling the intermediate spaces of the media schedules and landscape articles of Sunday supplements be forgotten. The ‘Argentinean anthropological imaginary’ is only partially provided with images by the literature or behaviour of anthropologists.

In Diego de Torres’ map from 1609, ‘Atalama’, ‘Valle Calchaquí’, ‘Salta’, ‘Cubica’, and ‘Copiapo’ appear in the same font and symbology, though the last two with the addition of the port symbol (Raffino 1983: 839). In bigger size and without the association to the symbol of chapel foundation, maybe designating not towns or villages but bigger areas or populations, are ‘Malfin’, ‘Abaucan’, ‘Andalgatas’, and ‘Anholac’ (this last one to the west of ‘Valle Calchaquí’, and probably predecessor of Antofagasta, or Antofalla, or both). ‘Chichas’ to the north, and ‘Tucumania’ to the east, are the designations of even bigger regions. According to Raffino (1983), the designations of Malfin, Abaucan, and Andalgatas correspond to “big groups (señoríos)”, to which ‘Anholac’ should be added if we assume that the writing coincides with the intention of describing similar levels of socio-political organization. In italics and a smaller font size, there is what Raffino calls “parcialidades”, though none of them is associated to Anholac’s designation. It is also probable that the small designations in italics were used in those cases in which the area and its inhabitants were known in a more detailed way, for example the Calchaquí valley, while the other areas, less known, would have remained designated by more general ethnic names. The true thing is that there is nothing in this map that resembles the Puna de Atacama: Atalama in one hand, and Anholac in the other, do not seem to relate,

But the confirmation of this imaginary in the (pre)history would be the work of Archaeology, which, as it was to imagine, could not remove itself from the preunderstandings of its determinant geography. As it was expressed by Pérez Gollán in explicit reference to the Puna, “the anthropological views of these issues [the delimitation of the space, the societies that occupied and occupy it, and its historical depth] are, generally, strongly dyed by the social representations that have been formed in certain geographical regions” (Pérez Gollán 1994). The Puna de Atacama as geographical category has not only been dyed by social representations; it has also been the medium through which these got reproduced and naturalized. That is, the geographic nature of the description gave an appearance of neutrality to what actually, as we have been able to see, was a historic construction related to the context of consolidation of the national states. The narration of the landscape through the travellers’ accounts literary genre allowed the transference of the experience of the journey to the social imaginary. Archaeology, as active participant of the same social representations of the cultural context of which it forms part of, incorporated such literary representations 25

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 2.5: Diego de Torres’ map from 1609 (Raffino 1983). Notice the writing used in Anholac, which is equivalent to the one used for Malfin, Abaucan, and Andalgatas. No relationship between Atalama and Anholac is established.

it as “incomplete in the part that corresponds to the Puna de Atacama” [Holmberg 1988 (1900): 5].

and there is not even the smallest indication of the last one belonging to the first one. Besides, Anholac and, more to the south, Malfin, are the only names that go transversally through the designation of the cordillera: ‘Cordillera siye Montes in longum decurentia’ (Figure 2.5).

In the seventeenth century, the north of the Puna de Atacama was part of the jurisdiction of Potosí, integrating the district, province, or Corregimiento of Atacama. The district of Atacama was divided in two jurisdictions: Atacama la Baja or ‘prouincia vaxa de Atacama’ (including the Loa River, Chiu Chiu, Calama), and Atacama la Alta or ‘prouincia alta de Atacama’ (corresponding to the Salado River and the oases of the Atacama salt lake, including the capital, San Pedro de Atacama) (Martinez et al. 1990). Two Annexes to

Luis Enot’s map dates from twenty-three years later (Raffino 1983: 845). In it, though with some minor differences among which ‘Anholac’ has become ‘Antiofac’ (Figure 2.6), practically the same scheme was reproduced. Holmberg had already complained about the cartography’s silence regarding our region; he described 26

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA

Figure 2.6: Luis Enot’s map from 1632 (Raffino 1983). Almost the same scheme of Torres’ representation, but Antiofac appears written now.

Londres given by don Gerónimo Luis de Cabrera on September 17th, 1633, in Pomán” (Maldones 1899: 7)23.

Atacama la Alta, recorded since the beginnings of the seventeenth century (Casassas Cantó 1974), were Susquis, to the east, and Nuestra Señora del Loreto de Ingaguasi, to the southeast. By the end of the nineteenth century, colonel Maldonado from Catamarca stated that “(l) the section of the Puna de Atacama from the 25º parallel to the south (24º 55’ according to Bavio), that has already been denominated Antofagasta de la Sierra by a Geography book of this same year written by Morales, distinguishing it from the number 16º of this province’s departments, belongs to Catamarca. Its Royal Card title dates from August 16th, 1679, confirming the jurisdiction act of the city of San Juan de la Rivera de

The Merced del Peñón de Carachapampa y Antofagasta given on May 24th, 1766, in Salta, by D. Juan Manuel Fernández Campero, Governor and General Captain of the Province of Tucumán, included the extension of the Puna that was limited “to the west, by the landmarks that 23 Notice that the limit mentioned by Maldones -according to which the whole of the Hombre Muerto basin, including Incahuasi’s mineral, would remain under the jurisdiction of San Fernando del Valle- is even more to the north than the current inter-provincial limit. This is only understandable in a context where the aims of incorporating the territory to the provincial jurisdiction were what actually move the military man from Catamarca to write his bulletin.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA separate this province (Tucumán) from the provinces of Copiapó and Atacama; to the South and Southeast, mercedes of Anillaco; to the North and Northwest, the lands of the new mineral from Incahuasi; and to the East, lands from the Laguna Blanca. It is mentioned in that grace that the lands are jurisdiction of San Fernando de Catamarca” (Maldones 1899: 8; emphasis by the author).

general practicing a really wide base mobility were noted in administrative documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Casassas Cantó 1974; Castro 1993; Gentile Lafaille 1986; Hidalgo 1978, 1982, 1984; Martínez et al. 1991; Martínez et al. 1988; Martínez et al. 1990; Noticias 1974). Besides, the settlement pattern as a whole would have caused an extended mobility, interethnicity of the settlements, and contextual attachment to identity categories (Martínez et al. 1990), contributing, then, to the documentary confusion.

Lafone Quevedo, apparently also caught up by the expansionist spirit of Catamarca, understood, instead, that “the ancient and modern limits have been established according to the jurisdiction act of don Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera from 1633, when Londres was refunded at the site of Pomán; the Royal Act of the jurisdiction of San Fernando, in the valley of Catamarca; and the Merced of Antofagasta, by which it becomes evident that the vast region of Antofagasta, Carachapampa, and Ingagasta or Ingahuassi belongs to the jurisdiction of Catamarca and, even with more reason, to the Argentinean Republic” [Lafone Quevedo 1888, quoted in Holmberg 1988 (1900): 7].

The textual categories that were developed by the colonial bureaucracy to designate the inhabitants of the Puna and Atacama in general were related to the idea of ‘the rebel land’ (Martínez 1992). In such textuality, the people is described in terms of ‘the land’, and, thus, qualified as ‘warring’, ‘rebellious’, ‘rebel’, ‘rough and rugged’ (Martínez 1992). Martínez considers that, instead of referring to the reality that is assumed under description, those statements characterize “[...] a certain classifying system, a certain view that, on one hand organizes the different Puna groups between “war natives”, natives “half peaceful, half warring”, and “pacified” groups, giving cultural and social predetermined characteristics to each one of them according to their respective position in the axis “naturesociety”, and, on the other, expresses, even inside a bureaucratic discoursive character, a certain conception of the social spaces and the role of the pacifier as main figure of the transit between those two spaces” (Martínez 1992: 144).

Towards the end of the Spanish colonial jurisdiction, the Puna de Atacama did not exist as a unified jurisdiction; Susques and Incahuasi belonged to the jurisdiction of Atacama, and Antofagasta and El Peñón, to Catamarca’s24. It is not mentioned in any case which jurisdiction Antofalla belonged to, but given its closer nearness to the mine centre of Incahuasi on the coast of the Hombre Muerto basin, it is quite probable it was related to it -as it is also noticeable in Hidalgo’s cartographic reconstructions (1982, 1984). In 1766, Incahuasi had been considered ‘new’ in the text of the Merced we have quoted above. Two decades after that, in 1787, Juan del Pino Manrique wrote: “This (Incaguas) is a golden mineral nowadays ruined, but of renown name in the ancient. Of cold temperament and short of every food, of which it is provided by the immediate valleys of Tucumán” (De Angelis 1863). Incahuasi was considered depopulated by the consecutive census towards the ends of the eighteenth century (Hidalgo 1978, 1984). Nonetheless, it is likely that the ‘depopulation’ was, better than actual depopulation, the combined effect of the inhabitation pattern (Hidalgo 1978), and the far away distance of the settlement of Incahuasi for doing the census of a hard to reach settlement of little and disperse population. It would seem that, at least during the decades of 1760 and 1770, Incahuasi was a major centre (Hidalgo 1987). Not only Incahuasi natives seem to have been difficult to control by colonial authorities; complaints about the inhabitants of the province of Atacama in

Thus, the textual outcome answers to the previously stated categories, which, being derived from the “system of representations of a society”, are unrelated to “the reality of the narrated” (Martínez 1992: 144). But, even though it is necessary to abandon the idea of the textual narration fully obeying to a real referent, this does not imply the belief in an absolute divorce between narration and practice. In fact, the narration of the landscape -in the Early Colonial period as well as in the nineteenth century- is at the same time both practice of representation and representation of practice. This means that even though we should not trust, as Martínez says, in the value of truth of narrative descriptions, these are themselves practices of representation that were made in historic contexts of which the objects and subjects of the description were a part of. And colonial and nineteenth century categories answer to a single historic trajectory of appropriation of the punas in hands of societies that, being foreigners to that territory, did not only impose on it an ‘outsider’ point of view, but also conceptualized it and together with the territory, its people- from the framework of construction of otherness. The conceptualization of the Puna de Atacama as a radically different territory (moon-like), as the extreme of sterility, and, concomitantly, the perception of its inhabitants in the margins of hunger and thirst, lacking culture and fatherland, acknowledges, in the context of the late nineteenth century, the perspective of the nation, the

24 Bertrand (1885), and Hidalgo after him (1978), place all the current department of Antofagasta de la Sierra, Catamarca province, within the colonial province of Atacama. It is also probable that the intention of Bertrand, who was travelling by request of the Chilean state, was inclining the colonial precedents towards the Pacific slope in times of boundary arguments with Argentina. Afterwards, Hidalgo presents a map where the southern limit of the Corregimiento of Atacama is established a little bit more to the south of parallel 24º (Hidalgo 1982, 1984), in agreement with the limit we infer for Carachipampa and Antofagasta.

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ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PUNA DE ATACAMA state, the modern society. This one saw itself as a project of civility, fertile by definition, that was actually unified behind the idea of the belonging to a territory, the love to the fatherland. A similar sense of construction of otherness, though not exactly the same, is found in the statement of colonial bureaucracy’s categories.

exposed in the second part of this Chapter through the characterization of the literary genre of travellers’ narrations from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Puna de Atacama as literary creation must be considered within the context of construction of the political-territorial nation-state polities. Through the transference of the experience of the journey, the Puna de Atacama has been consummated as paradigmatic social representation of ecological, political, territorial, cultural, and economic marginality.

But the narration of the Puna landscape did not only integrate a project of symbolic construction of otherness; it is also related to the consecutive practices of appropriation of Puna resources in hands of non-Puna societies. To put it differently, the symbolic construction of the Puna -literary since the colony- has been produced concomitantly to the economic -though not for this less symbolic- practice of appropriation of resources from outside the Puna. Even though this remains beyond the range of this work, we will present, in Chapter 825, archaeological evidence that backs up the existence of an enclave landscape as a way of representation related to such attempts of appropriation of resources. It could be said that the attempts of appropriation and domination of the Puna from outside its territory had their starting point at the beginnings of the Hispanic colonial occupation, but, as it has been accurately suggested, they have had a previous start, datable to the late Agro-Pottery period (Raffino and Cigliano 1973).

At the same time, the Puna de Atacama as a geographical category has not been a simple nineteenth century literary invention; with the precedent of colonial description categories of the Puna such as the ‘rebellious land’ and the ‘rough and rugged land’, it belongs, in a comprehensive sense, to the pattern of appropriation of resources in hands of non-Puna societies. The outsider perspective of the Puna, of which Otonello de García Reynoso and Krapovickas (1973) felt sorry, is related to wider and more perdurable historical processes in which the Puna has been progressively built as object of appropriation. The narration of the landscape is not more than the narration of the strategies of such objectifing process, but it cannot be denied that, within the context of modern literary culture -inside which the academic practice in general and the archaeological practice in particular must be put-, those narrative categories, such as the one of the Puna de Atacama, are the ones that have greater influence. Other strategies, as the narrative of enclave landscapes, have had a lot less general influence, but they allow an understanding of the historic process inside which the social representations are generated.

Synthesis of Chapter 2 The archaeological approaches to the past of the Puna de Atacama have shared the assumption that such territory is a homogeneously marginal area if seen from an ecological point of view and that, consequently, it determines the kind of human settlement that can be developed in it. The search for sustenance as a determinant goal of existence through an adaptive process that led to llama domestication, the rationality of the occupation that is related to the presence of stops for caravan traffic, and the characterization of the Puna culture as homogeneous, little developed, and/or secondary within the framework of the regional cultural history, have been the dominant thematic orientations the archaeological historiography of the Puna de Atacama has taken. These, yet originated in different times and from different theoretical approaches, share the characterization of the territory of the Puna as a marginal geography, characterization that has led to the formulation of the different interpretative themes.

In this Chapter we have shown that the Archaeology of the Puna de Atacama shares, as a whole, the assumption of marginality, and that such assumption is previous both to the theory and to the data. All the more, the Puna de Atacama, built as geographic object, is taken as data26 by regional archaeology. This does not imply its nullity. On the contrary, it is now possible to reconstruct the interpretation of the archaeological past without the ties the unseen assumption imposed. It is within the archaeological literature itself where the elements that allow stating the oasis landscape as alternative to, and overcoming of, the category of Puna de Atacama can be found (for example, Núñez and Dillehay 1978; Olivera 1989; Tarragó 1984).

The assumption of the Puna’s marginality, however, was not an invention of archaeologists; it has been incorporated as a social and cultural representation. In the archaeological literature, it operates as a pre-theoretical understanding, as it is left demonstrated by the shared nature of its assumption in different theoretical frameworks as well as by its yet undemonstrated durability, and by the verification of its historic origin before and outside Archaeology. This last issue has been

The archaeology of the Puna de Atacama adopted this as an already established object and, at the same time, reconstructed it. But far from reflecting a unitary geographic space itself, the Puna de Atacama, as any other geographic object, is the result of a historic construction that is partially previous to archaeology and partially built by it. Because of that, a critical archaeology of the Puna de Atacama should begin by an exploration

25

26

Where the reader is referred to for further details.

29

Meaning ‘given’, datum.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA of the object’s origin (arjé27), that is, by an exploration of the history of constitution of its extra-scientific determinations, with the purpose of demonstrating the pre-theoretical nature of the assumptions that the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama has inadvertently incorporated by taking its object as given. Through the understanding of the historic process of constitution of the Puna de Atacama as an object, this is understood as one of the categories through which geography has been built. In particular, it has been showed in what way the Puna de Atacama was built as a descriptive object of geography throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the context of conformation of the national states, their elites, their projects, and their imaginary28.

27 Even though the concept arjé is usually related to metaphysic essentialism, it could well be understood in the sense of search for the (historic) origin of the objects of reality, a more appropriate interpretation to be kept in mind, after all, by archaeology. 28 The enounced critical project will show its potential once the whole argument has been fully developed. But, consequently with its theoretical premises, the critical-reconstructive project must be taken under the same kind of analysis. To say this differently, the same way as it can take care of checking the ways in which others have referred to, pointed out, categorized, and understood, the exercise could as well spy on the ways in which one has built his own discourse. After all, the critical project seems to be ‘so modern’. Clearly, though this is loosing relevance, the theoretical and methodological justification does not leave this project outside the possibility of being charged of ‘following the fashion’. Firstly, because if one accepts the theoreticalmethodological argumentations in which every critical project is based, and acts in consequence, this will continue until focusing on the own project; secondly, academic fashions are also a historic phenomenon, and they can even be ways into the analysis of the assumptions. Anyhow, it is necessary to clarify two aspects of this project. In first place, even though one intends to be consequent with the critical orientation, this will only be possible once one has already acted, when one decides to look back, because, as Geertz said, we live life towards but we understand it backwards, after the facts (Geertz 1996). Secondly, though more important, even though the critical project acquires the appearance of being an overcoming discourse, this is not such except for those that do not understand it. None serious intellectual project can consider itself absolute or definitive, but even less can one that intends a critical approach. The difference between critics and post-moderns is that the first ones believe they can understand the circumstances of the limitations of the intellectual projects, while post-moderns seem to rejoice in the contemplation of those limitations celebrating the success. The open nature of this construction has been left exposed, and not hidden, in the same title of this thesis.

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Chapter 3

Theoretical-methodological elements for an archaeology of the oasis “It is an experience of every traveller that the mule follows its instincts or its smell with more certainty than men for finding the place of rest, joining the pack-train, or finding it down the roads, if it is left in total freedom. Appealing to this last resource and handing myself completely in to the animal’s instinct, I’ve crossed abysms and overcome precipices I would have avoided in the middle of the day just at the sight of so many dangers and the reckless of such a boldness” (Francisco J. San Román, Desierto i cordilleras de Atacama) conformation of the already classic scheme of intermediate horizons and periods; one of the reasons behind its adoption was the shortage of information for significant pieces of space. The image of the Inca polity given by chroniclers, who stressed the centralizing aspects of imperial power and, hence, the analogy with previous horizons, had influence on this framework too. Instead, the local perspective looks at the relationship between the capital and a site from the subordinate point of view. This way, it considers the minor settlements as units that have their own history of development, history that is related to -though not dependent on- the power centres (Bermann 1994). This apparent dichotomy has also been related to the relevance of rural history in the study of the processes of change implied in the fall of state structures. Within the south-central Andes, it has been proposed that societies never fully discarded “all progress that had been achieved over centuries of previous state rule and rural intervention, and that the success of pre-Hispanic rural economy was largely independent of state intervention” (Graffam 1992: 883). The role of the state in the development of productive technologies -and the role of these ones in the birth of the state- has also been formulated in terms of ‘top-down’ (Kolata 1986, 1991) and ‘bottom-up’ (Erickson 1993; Graffam 1992) perspectives.

In Chapter 2 we have shown the historic construction of the ecologically marginal character of the Puna de Atacama as one of its essential defining features and how it acted afterwards as assumption in the interpretations of the pre-Hispanic past of the territory. It could be said that this forms part of an ‘archaeology of the archaeology’ of the Puna de Atacama. Having detected the ways in which the pre-theoretical assumptions have been getting infiltrated in the interpretations of the past, and having demonstrated their historic origin, we have contributed to their theoretical criticism. In this Chapter, the archaeological themes we have detected in the regional literature will be retaken but from a theoretical perspective. Once the pre-theoretical assumptions have been discovered, interpretative orientations can be led to a theoretical reconstruction. This is a reconstruction because, far away from abandoning the preceding themes and interpretations, it consists in their reformulation within a new framework. And it is a theoretical reconstruction because it takes care of leading the assumptions that used to be hidden outside theory back to it. Each one of the topics that were previously analyzed will be retaken from a perspective that is oriented to outline the entry ways to a theory of the oasis. Identity, interaction, and domestication will not be abandoned topics but reformulated ones; throughout this reformulation, the ideas for the conformation of the category of oasis will be provided. Even though this is what the whole book is about, we will discuss the elements that are purely theoretical and that, hence, will become relevant to the archaeological interpretation of the following chapters. At the same time, this will allow building the theoretical model of the oasis in the last section of this Chapter.

But the difficulties found in relating global processes and local histories are not exclusive patrimony of Andean archaeology. In the context of European prehistory and from different theoretical perspectives, it has been agreed to stress the role of particular histories though criticizing the irrelevance of such studies if not inserted in the histories of global processes of longer term (Dietler 1995; Hodder 1995a; Sherratt 1995). Not even archaeology broadly speaking is exclusive in what refers to the treatment of this difficulty; it has been widely considered within the frame of social and economic history. The framework proposed by Wallerstein (1991a) has been one of great influence on the studies about the origins and expansion of capitalism, allowing relating really geographically distant regions as parts of a same world system. Wallerstein himself has taken care of criticizing those investigations that, though explicitly declared inspired by his proposal, define the world system as object and analyze its evolution throughout the millennia

Structure and Agency, Global and Local In the context of the recent theoretical discussions regarding the most convenient perspectives for the understanding of the processes of change in Andean societies, a ‘local perspective’ has been characterized in opposition to a ‘capital-centric’ one (Bermann 1994: 1014). The perspective centred in the capital, of long tradition in Andean archaeology, is related to the search for a space-time framework for the area, and results in the 31

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA (Frank 1993; Gills and Frank 1990). Wallerstein’s proposal, far from implying the existence of a world system, prefers to state the history of consecutive and multiple world-systems, that is, economic systems that are like a world (Wallerstein 1991a). In Wallerstein’s definition, world-systems are characterized by a major volume in the flow of manufactures among politically independent units. In the definitions of centre-periphery systems, the technological gap that is implicit in the interchange of raw materials -primary value- for manufactures -added value- characterizes the asymmetric relationship. Even though the distinction between manufactured goods and raw materials might not be crucial for the definition of world-systems, it sure is, in Wallerstein thought, the one between staples and luxuries; such distinction serves both the characterization of the interchange that is internal to the system -the first ones-, as well as the one between systems -the second ones- (Wallerstein 1991a: 191). The importance of the distinction lies, broadly speaking, on the technological implications of the interchange of great volumes of staples in what regards costs of transport and implied techniques. The interchange of luxuries, on the other hand, does not necessarily imply a high cost of transportation if we measure it in relationship with the value of the commercialized good. Now, the distinction between ‘staple’ and ‘luxury’ objects, surely difficult to establish out of context or, better, outside the specific context of production and consumption, could rightly be questioned. Thus, it would be more useful to differentiate flows directly through the relationship between volume and value of the goods within a same context of demand, which, in the end, is the one that impels the trade of particular goods that are subjectively considered as needed12. In Sherratt’s adaptation of Wallerstein’s conceptual framework to the purposes of the archaeology of European Bronze Age, he takes the concept ‘core’ for the big masses of urban consumers and manufacturing centres, and ‘periphery’, for the surrounding semidarkness of less economically and politically developed societies, generally ‘chieftainships’ or secondary states. But, instead of the concept ‘semi-periphery’, introduced by Wallerstein to name the relevant intermediate communities that are between peripheral areas and dominant core regions (Terlouw 1993), Sherratt prefers Schneider’s proposal that refers to the yet even further ‘margins’ (Sherratt 1993). The margins are described the following way: “[…] the contacts and indirect influence of urban trading systems undoubtedly extended beyond this periphery, as rigorously defined. Ideas and technologies could spread beyond it, and the exchange roads for certain types of items might extend for considerable distances without creating interdependence” (Sherratt 1993: 6).

To Sherratt, who states the existence of core/marginal systems, the world-systems would be a subgroup of these ones that is delimited by the relationships between core and periphery. “Within a nuclear/margin system, the zones are not functionally differentiated and interdependent, as in a core/periphery structure; they are not maintained by contemporary flows of products. They are theretofore likely to involve spatial processes with long time-lags, and can potentially develop independently after an initial transmission episode” (Sherratt 1993: 6). Hence, in the search for the origin of core-periphery systems, we would find core-periphery-marginal systems. These definitions are useful, though it is uncertain if the whole framework of the world-system theory is applicable to the cases under study and it is still sensible to ask ourselves if it does not introduce more distortions than explanations3. Anyhow, it is the concept of economic systemic articulation that underlies the worldsystem theory in particular the one that has proved to be of enormous stimulus for regional research, for example, in the scope of Andean colonial history (Assadourian 1983; Harris et al. 1987). In what regards the preHispanic period, we have mentioned in Chapter 2 the significant proposals of Núñez and Dillehay (Núñez and Dillehay 1978, 1995; Dillehay and Núñez 1988), and Tarragó (1984), to which Patterson’s (1990a, 1991) should be added. The stimulus the notions of worldsystem and core/marginal system cause in the Puna de Atacama lead to think regional processes in relationship with, not the circum-Puna area any longer, but, this last one in between the south-central and southern Andes, allowing the existence of differed relationships through time, sometimes even for really long periods. From the perspective of economic history, the introduction of these concepts would allow considering the articulation of macro-regional spaces yet without the need of calling for the existence of price-fixing markets or market places (La Lone 1982; Murra 1987). But the greater relevance of these models lies on the fact that they underline the structural importance of greatscale economic movements yet beyond the political, cultural, ethnic, etc. limits. Besides, the systemic nature of structural processes allows understanding the changes within a bigger framework than the one suggested by the visibility of direct interchanges or influences. In this sense, margins and, it should be added, spaces between systems, have a particular relevance to the integration of the space, even though they do not depend, or depend just partially or intermittently, on cores. The space defined as arena of circuit mobility can be understood as a heterogeneous space where different regions, which alternatively become marginal and peripheral while new urban cores get conformed and disintegrated, live 3

To that extent, the sceptic position that Dietler (1995) holds regarding a totally different case -the Iron Age in Western Europe- is interesting. This author makes special reference to the introduction of historic assumptions, such as the Hellenic hegemony, the over-determination of cores, the importance of manufacture, etc., together with the scheme.

1

This statement assumes the absence of relevant structures of forced commercialization in Atacama such as, for example, the colonial institution of repartimiento (Hidalgo 1987). 2

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS together, still when these are outside the circum-Puna area and even at great distances. Urbanization processes that occur, for example, in the Titicaca basin, or economic expansion processes in the lowlands of Catamarca and La Rioja, can be seen within the processes of articulation of a same space to the circum-Puna area and the south-central and southern Andes, feign ignorance of the need to appeal to political or cultural dependencies. Thus, with the risk of contradicting the orthodoxy of world-system theory, we can think about the historic articulation of economic spaces, and the historic articulation of the structural weight of production and consumption cores, so as to order the strength lines in other regions of the space (Tarragó 1984).

“In order to escape the realism of the structure, that hypostatizes systems of objective relations by converting them into totalities already constituted outside of individual history and group history, it is necessary to pass from the opus operatum to the modus operandi, from statistical regularity or algebraic structure to the principle of the production of this observed order, and to construct the theory of practice or, more precisely, the theory of the mode of generation of practices, which is the precondition for establishing an experimental science of the dialectic of the internalization of externality and the externalization of internality, or, more simply, of incorporation and objectification” (Bourdieu 1977: 72; original emphasis).

Even outside the circulation of goods, the conformation of a macro-regional space has been invoked from the circulation of ideas (Pérez Gollán 1986). Far away from counterpoising a model of circulation of symbolic goods to one of circulation of economic goods, Pérez Gollán’s proposal of “regional integration” allows foreseeing the indivisibility of economy and symbolism in the structuring of Andean spaces. And, at the same time, this leads towards the limits of structural models, because the time scales in which they operate are not always the same.

Many archaeologists have been interested in this problematic. Among them, Hodder has offered a reinterpretation of European Neolithic in which he shows the ways in which symbolic structures structure and are structured in practice (Hodder 1990)4. On his side, Johnson has interpreted the relationship between the styles of the houses, the conformation of the rural landscape, and the process of division into fields in medieval and modern England (Johnson 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996). Shanks and Tilley have rejected the functionalist explanation of social action so to adopt a perspective very much influenced by the theory of practice (Shanks and Tilley 1987a: Chapter 6, 1987b: Chapter 3). Johnson has affirmed that “when seeking to understand human agency, the archaeologist must be prepared to describe the antecedent historical conditions, the habitus from which the actor draws, in a synchronic and normative way in order to gain understanding of those actions”, and that “norms should be seen as ‘tools’ for fulfilling strategies rather than necessarily as prescriptive devices” (Johnson 1989: 207).

It is through actual and individual practices that objective structures are reproduced and modified, but these practices are not produced as direct answers to objective structures but to their subjective representations. This means that subjects do not answer to objective structures that order their world but to how each one of them understands that he/she is supposed to act in the world as he/she understands it. This is the basis of the proposal of Thompson’s “moral economy” (1984), according to which the inter-subjective notions of actors regarding public benefit and objective order are the ones that lead them to up rise because of, for example, an increase in the price of wheat flour and not, necessarily, because of the higher cost of existence. Of course that the search for sustenance is at the basis of this notion, but it is mediated by culturally and socially reproduced notions regarding how the world must work and which the place of each one in it is.

But this perspective is not safe from methodological difficulties, some of which have been enounced by Cobb and Garrow (1996). The main difficulty lies on the detection of individual human actions without the resource of appealing to written documents5. This problem seems one of impossible resolution, and, in fact, the distrust with which numerous historians see the chances of reaching a dialogue with archaeology is resumed in the authors’ explanation; but it is possible to give it, though, if not a solution, at least a commitment: material culture is nothing but the product of individual and/or collective human actions and, even though the occasions in which it can be stated that a material object is the result of a sole action are awkward -though not inexistent-, every material object is the result of accretions of continuous or discontinuous actions. Bayliss and Orton (1994) have commented on these aspects in their discussion about what it is that is wanted to be

For a sensible theoretical discussion of this problematic, it would be convenient to restate it in the terms it is treated by contemporary social theory, particularly that which takes care of the relationship between structure and agency (Bourdieu 1977, 1983, 1988; Giddens 1984). This refers to the reflexive processes through which social structures structure individuals at the same time that individuals reproduce and modify them. The polemic between the perspectives “bottom-up” and “top-down” we have mentioned earlier can be restated and overcome by appealing to the “theory of practice” (Bourdieu 1977) and the “theory of structuration” (Giddens 1984). Bourdieu has proposed the category of habitus as a fundamental addition to this discussion:

4

It is necessary to point out that, in the end, Hodder remains closer to structuralism than to the theory of practice. 5 Every theoretical perspective whose unit of analysis is the individual will face the same problem if it pretends to be applied to archaeology. Such is the case of cultural selectionism in Rindos’ version (1984).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA dated, if events or phases. With this discussion in mind, this theoretical-methodological problem could be reduced to a technical-methodological issue. Nevertheless, it is necessary to underline that, since archaeology treats with material objects, and objects themselves are the ones that mediate between individual actions, the nature of this problem is, thus, diluted but not vanished and it must be adequately considered. Material culture, as objectification of action, is already a mediation between subjects and their actions, subjects between each other, and subjects and their environment. In great part, material culture is already a mediation between structure and action for, even though it is produced by action, it also and simultaneously produces action and, in this sense, acts as structure. Consequently, material culture can be seen as that which reproduces and modifies structures and, in this sense, it can be understood as an integrating part of the habitus and social action. It is this mediating nature of material culture, through which objective structures are represented and subjective actions are practiced, the one that will have to get the focus of the efforts oriented to methodological development6.

(Braudel 1968 [1958]). The multiple-scale approach implies, to this extent, not only analyzing each temporality but, above all, analyzing their superpositions and interrelationships, for it is in the relationship between episodic history and structural history where agency and structure find their recursive bond7. In the scope of social theory, Giddens has applied Hägerstrand’s time- geography, which takes as starting point the routinarian nature of daily life and the finite nature of individual life. Temporal geography is interested in the interjections, in the space and time of daily paths and life-long paths. Giddens, on his side, reformulates these concepts in local terms -meaning, the use of space for providing the interaction environments that specify their contextuality-, and in availabilitypresence terms -that is, the ‘being together’ of the copresence that asks for the mediums to be able to ‘get together’ (Giddens 1984). But the fundamental idea of time-geography is the idea according to which to pass spaces is also to pass times (Gosden 1994). It is in the interjection between different space-time scales where the interjections of structures and actions are found. The oasis can be understood as an ambit where social relationships are reproduced. From a multiple-scale analysis perspective, it is considered in which way the relationships that are reproduced at the oasis level relate to the relationships that are established in the ambits of the domestic units, the region, and the macro-regional space. But, consequently with the mediating role material culture is given, the consequences of its reflexive nature are analyzed. So, the oasis, as domestic landscape, reproduces the domestic relationships it represents. The relationships between the oasis and the house -inwards-, and the oasis and the journey -outwards- imply mutual relationships through which the locus of social reproduction at a certain scale reproduces the loci of social reproduction at smaller and bigger scales. But, besides, by exploring the temporality of the oasis as landscape, this last one becomes bonded to the daily, seasonal, and life-long temporalities, and to the conjunctures and structures of longer duration, that is, the temporalities of the subjective experience of the objective world, and the temporalities of the objective structuration of the subjective world.

A second problem that must be considered is the fact that structure and agency are related, at the same time, in multiple levels. The structure can be the society or the culture, but these can be strongly influenced by wider structures such as the natural environment, wider scale economic systems as world-systems, political macroregional processes, etc. At the same time, the definition of society also allows delimiting structures at different scales: the domestic group, the village, the ethnic group, etc. Social groups are in great part subjectively defined according to representations of objective structures. With the purpose of overcoming these problems, Cobb and Garrow have proposed a “multiple-scale analysis” (1996). Multiple-scale analysis considers, at one time, the different scales in which relationships and bonds between different scales exist. It explicitly acknowledges that social reproduction has place inside and outside the limits of the scale under consideration, whether this is the domestic unit, the site, the valley, or the region. Hence, the locus of social reproduction is simultaneously the multiple structurally and practically connected loci. But multiple-scale analysis should not be limited to the consideration of different spatial scales; it should as well embrace the consideration of multiple temporal scales. There is where the addition of the Annales to social science, recently incorporated to archaeology, is centred (Bintliff 1991b; Hodder 1987a; Knapp 1992). This addition is based on Braudel’s proposal according to which the scales of historic processes are three: the episodic (factual history), the conjunctures, and the long duration (these two conforming structural history)

7

On the other hand, it is in the scope of the long term where the most antagonist theoretical positions look for mediations. Hodder, recognized as leader of post-processual archaeology, has gone into the history of the Annales, in analogue approach to that of the study of mentalities, as a way of incorporating the study of the historical processes to postprocessual archaeology (Hodder 1987c). At his time, Bintliff, who has become one of the European archaeologists most hardly critical of postprocessual archaeology (Bintliff 1988), has incorporated the analysis of the long term besides propelling its adoption by archaeology in general (Bintliff 1988, 1991b). For example, in an analysis of the historic process in the Aegean between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, he has suggested that the particular regional trajectories are the result of complex interactions between local effects of productive technologies in the long term (Braudel’s structure), and inter-regional interactions in the mid term (Braudel’s conjuncture) (Bintliff 1997).

6 See section “From the Textual Metaphor to a Tropology of the Oasis”, this same Chapter, for a methodology for the interpretation of material culture.

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS The articulation with a great-scale economic space is only possible upon the basis that its conditions of possibility are included in the subjective representations and in the ‘possible’ practices at smaller scales of social interaction such as the domestic unit and the oasis. At the same time, the articulation with a great-scale economic space modifies the subjective representations of its conditions in the smaller scales. That is why the oasis includes in its definition the relationship with the external world at the same time that it is the representation of its denial, because, in fact, the oasis is an anomaly of the desert (Higgs and Vita-Finzi 1972).

practices and expressions of identity and group difference -those limits beyond which we talk about interaction- are processes that imply each other mutually and that express one another in the different loci where they are manifested. The reflexive and multiple-scaled nature of material culture must be as well considered within the framework of conformation of identity expressions, because it is in such context where the mediations between social and cultural reproduction and social interaction processes and, through them, the relationship between daily actions that reproduce social groups and objective structures that order regions at bigger scales- are found. This way, global and local perspectives can be integrated in a same oasis perspective. The oasis perspective implies a view from the local. Nonetheless, since the experience of living in an oasis includes the experience of its bonding to the world beyond the desert -the journey-, it is there where the oasis perspective incorporates the global9. But the construction of the oasis implies, at the same time, the representation of the genealogic or cultural origins, real or fictitious, that are common to the group, inwards the oasis -domestic groups- as well as outwards -ethnic symbolism-. The oasis is a space-time dimension that can be characterized by certain contexts of co-presence and availability that, also, lead to the construction of the oasis as local interaction group. Understanding the oasis landscape implies an analysis of the relationships between the different spatial and temporal scales in which social actions are developed. The domestic unit and the village, both with their inner and outer spaces, configure the inwards scales; the relationships with the world beyond the desert configure the outwards scale, more inclusive each time. Simultaneously, the daily nature of the oasis is developed in each scale with daily and seasonal routines, routines that are inserted in longer time conjunctures and structures.

The construction of group identities is, to this extent, a really important factor because it is through it that cultural difference is objectified. The expression of the identity, and, hence, that of the difference of cultural group and linage, influences the strategies of relationship with other groups, at the same time that the interaction with other groups leads to particular objective or subjective delimitations of group identities (Jones 1997). But, since they are reproduced inside social interaction groups in the context of the domestic unit and the local village group, such identities are not only expressed at the level of far away interactions. This way, stylistic expressions are not merely a reflection of norms or cultural identities -though they are significantly related to the articulation of ethnicities, ethnicity understood as “the ways in which the social and cultural processes intersect with one another in the identification of, and interaction between, ethnic groups” (Jones 1997: xiii). The similarities and differences in the material culture are not, then, a proper indicator of social interaction. Material culture also integrates strategies in communication processes8; therefore, the ways of articulation of ethnic symbolism with ethnicities, as the meaning of symbols in general, are arbitrary in a general framework. Nonetheless, this is not true in the context of particular historic societies: “Ethnic symbolism is generated, to varying degrees, from the existent cultural practices and modes of differentiation characterizing various social domains, such as gender and status differentiation, or the organization of space within households” (Jones 1997: 125; see as well V. Tilley 1997).

From Domestication to Domesticity The cultural contents of the notion of domestication can be understood as representations of domesticity. As it has been seen in the previous Chapter, camelid domestication can be treated as a cultural problem because it was culturally constructed as a natural problem. Domestication has been constructed as an adaptation to the natural environment and, accordingly, tied to methodological control and emptied of cultural content (Bourdieu 1977). This can be demonstrated through the analysis of the pre-theoretical and cultural options that are included in the methodological control of camelid domestication.

But, even though stylistic symbolism is not a reflection of the interaction between groups, it is, instead, the objectification of the subjective expressions of the definitions of those groups that take part in interaction contexts. These, at their time, correspond to subjective representations of objective structures that order the interaction. The interactions between social groups and their identities are processes that are mutually implied. Therefore, between wider structures -as for example macro-regional systems- and stylistic expressions of the material culture, we must not expect a direct relationship. But that does not mean that there is not a relationship between both terms. On the contrary, actual interaction 8

9 Establishing an analogy with those other insular geographies oceanic islands are, it must be said that the idea of oasis is closer to the position according to which a long tradition of open sea navigation predominated in Oceanic prehistory (Gosden and Pavlides 1994), than to the position to which it is convenient to look at each island as a conveniently isolated microcosm (Kirch 1997).

As for example in Herzfeld’s discussion about disemics (1992).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA As it is well known, there are four species of South American camelids, two of them domesticated (llamas and alpacas), and two of them wild (vicuñas and guanacos). The four of them give birth to breeds that are fertile between each other, and in the south-central Andes, they share similar geographic distributions (Franklin 1982; Kent 1987; Wheeler 1984b). Especially in the Puna de Atacama, vicuñas and guanacos -both wild-, and llamas -domesticated- share not only a same general area but, also, in certain cases, pasture areas. As the exact relationship between processes of speciation and domestication is not known, and paleontological and zoo-archaeological explanations depend on each other mutually, there is no way to determine objectively if one bone specimen belonged to a domesticated or to a wild animal (Franklin 1982, Haber 1991; Yacobaccio et al. 1994). That is, it is not known if the processes that originated the species nowadays known as domesticated are dependent or independent from the processes through which they were domesticated. In other words, it is not accurately known if a wild population of llamas -where domestication would have taken place resulting in what is nowadays known as llamas- has ever existed or if, on the contrary, the llama, as taxonomic group, is the result of a differentiation process that occurred through the domestication of a wild population of camelids, whether these were guanacos, an X camelid, or some other species. Besides, there is the additional inconvenience of the paleontological and zoo-archaeological approaches implying each other mutually, because, as it has been said, it has not been demonstrated yet if speciation and domestication are interdependent or not (actually that is what we are intending to find out). For a start, this is the current state of research regarding animal domestication in any part of the world (Bökönyi 1989; Clutton-Brock 1987; Davis 1987; Ducos 1989; Ingold 1989). However, in the case of South American camelids, an additional problem is added, which, though of technical kind, seems to hide deep theoretical implications. From an osteological approach, it is not easy to discriminate between the four species. Even though some osteoscopic (Benavente et al. 1993; Wheeler 1984a) and osteometric (Kent 1982; Madero 1992; Miller 1979; Wing 1977) techniques have been recently developed, these are of difficult application, being the conservation of zooarchaeological samples of enough quality and quantity one of the main difficulties (Yacobaccio 1988). Everything seems to indicate, nonetheless, that the continuous development of techniques for taxonomic determination would allow, in a maybe not so far away future, a bigger confidence in the assignation of osteological groups to specific taxonomic groups10; it will remain, however, the problem of the interpretation of zoo-archaeological groups at a wild or domesticated status. Because, besides these problems, we have to add that of the possible hybridization as a result of the Spanish conquest of the Andes, which would darken the

relationships between the four groups nowadays discriminated and the groups that used to be differentiated in pre-Hispanic times (Wheeler et al. 1995). The same problems can be stated for the utilization of fibre attributes for the discrimination between groups (Arias et al. 1993; Benavente et al. 1993; Benavente et al. 1991; Reigadas 1992; Wheeler et al. 1995). Just through the empiric research of abundant enough, continuous, and prolonged in time osteological series, all of which would allow the osteoscopic and osteometric following of the changes that were operated in the same populations in a same region, it is presumable that the knowledge of the evolution of camelid populations, whether as product of their appropriation and segregation by human societies or due to other non- directly related factors, will advance. A similar situation has been suggested for ovicaprids in the Near East, where it has been intended to integrate prolonged ‘osteological series’ (Davis 1987). So, it could be the case of assuming what should be demonstrated if the identification of the zooarchaeological remains as coming from domesticated animals is based on the assumption that certain zooarchaeologically observed attributes correspond to a taxonomic group that was already domesticated in the times when such remains were deposited. This problem is serious, or even more serious, in the cases in which it is assumed that one is dealing with early domestication contexts. In such cases, a previous decision, an interpretation, must be made at the same exact moment where the interpretation begins. And this decision usually lies upon what is presumably inter-subjectively acceptable. An example will allow clarifying this problem. After stating the different difficulties that determination of camelid species presents -besides the current absence of alpacas in the Argentinean Northeastit is added: “The relevance of this discussion lies on the fact that, within the region considered in here, the smallest type is wild and the biggest is domesticated, expecting the same relationship in the faunal register. Thus, it is highly probable that the bigger types that have been seen at the sites are llamas and not guanacos. If this statement is true, these minority populations of big camelids would have been the first domesticated animals of the region, and this process would have been started towards the 4,500/5,000 years B.P.” (Yacobaccio et al. 1994: 28). Now, all the considerations refer to size differences between current taxonomic groups and their application to the past. Up to here, the conditional “if this statement is true” -the one of the biggest types being llamas and the smallest, vicuñas- is valid. It is known that llamas are domesticated and guanacos and vicuñas are not; nowadays, and for the last 500 years. But it is not known -and it should not be assumed since it is what we are trying to find out- if a domesticated llama has always existed or not. The authors decide that the relationship that was ethnographically observed between taxonomic categories and zoochrestic categories -that is, those that refer to the relationship status with humans- is the one that has always existed, and only from that decision is

10 And, in fact, the application of such recent technical developments has been of great utility for this work. See Chapter 7, this same volume.

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS these omissions to be reviewed, reason for which the data of the first three parts has been presented; and for clarifying concepts and confusions, it is advisable to indicate that it is not necessary that herd is given all the uses it can have for considering a culture as a herdoriented one” (Flores Ochoa 1968: 97). The fieldwork was made in a context of rural effervescence at Peru due to the fact that the process of agrarian reform was getting started. Such context implied, in great part, the redefinition of the native peasant communities and their relationship with the land (Matos Mar and Mejía 1980), and, thus, it pointed out a new role for Peruvian social anthropology and community studies. In a decade that was marked by planning on rural development at Peru, the definition of the economy of the communities acquired a dimension that went beyond mere academic exquisiteness; in that context, the definitions of peasant subsistence and traditional economies got a clearly political relevance (Starn 1994, with comments and answer). Flores Ochoa, for example, pointed out that: “(...) within Andean economy, it is convenient to take into account other factors that seem to play an important role for subsistence, bigger then than that of agriculture” (Flores Ochoa 1968: 99). Flores Ochoa’s argumentation ended up with a hypothesis that is of particular relevance for this discussion: herding had its origin in pre-Hispanic times. To support this hypothesis, Flores could not do more than call for two quotations: Murra’s work on flocks during the Inca period, and Cobo’s chronicle. Even though it may be stated that both can be referred to the Inca expansion to Collao -or maybe some time before-, it is Cobo’s text, with all its explicit estrangement, the one that offers, in a very direct way, the assumptions that underlie the definition of herding in the Andes:

that zoochrestic categories can be interpreted from the determination of taxonomic categories. Such decision, nevertheless, is not crazy or arbitrary; it is based upon a previous interpretation of the area’s context of camelid domestication according to which it constituted a process of adaptation to the available environment. In fact, the explanation built upon this assumption implies domestication -adaptation- of camelids that were previously available in nature. Since the adaptivist context of camelid domestication is a whole that is absolutely compatible with the culturally incorporated imaginary of the Puna de Atacama, it becomes quite clear why camelid domestication turned out to be one of the main themes of interest for archaeology within the area. But it is equally compatible with the classic ideas on animal domestication that were developed to explain these processes in the Old World and that have been incorporated in the conformation of Andean herding as object. The classic ethnography of Andean herding -that is, the one upon which the idea of herding societies of autonomous development in the Andes was created- is Flores Ochoa’s thesis about Paratía (Flores Ochoa 1968). Upon the basis of a fieldwork done in 1964 in the mentioned locality of the department of Puno (Peru), Flores Ochoa built, in a style that was very much dyed by functionalist anthropology, the image of a herding community. Four decades after its original publication, there is nothing in it that calls the attention, but a closer look to the author’s justifications allows focusing on the cognitive interests. The ethnographer particularly stressed -in the text, the preface, and the title- the definition of his object as “herders”. This constituted the main thesis of Flores Ochoa’s ethnography, that is, that the inhabitants of Paratía are “herders”. At that moment, far from being something obvious, the statement had to be justified. Flores Ochoa enounced: “[...] herders are the people that obtain the essential for their subsistence or for trading vegetal products from their agricultural neighbours from their flocks, and this is precisely what happens in Paratía” (Flores Ochoa 1968: 14). The whole work was directed to demonstrate that Paratía people obtained their subsistence from camelids at the same time that it was around them that their elaborated their culture and, at last, that they could be considered with full accuracy a case of ‘pure herders’. This would not be of any interest if it was not for the fact that what Flores Ochoa attempted judging by the consequences, with success- was defending the applicability of the category ‘herder’ exactly as it had been elaborated for populations of the Old World, still when the analogy implied sufficiently enough different contexts so to hide the specificity that his case and other similar cases of the Andes could offer. See the following statement as an example: “Maybe because herders of South America and Peru, specially, inhabit habitats that are at altitudes above the four thousand meters, they have been left aside, and it is with very much pretension that in this opportunity we hope

“God raised the llamas in these cold lands for the wealth being of their inhabitants, who would pass life with great difficulty without these animals, because they are really sterile lands, where one does not get cotton for dressing as in the warm lands, and having to buy it from outside for so many people is impossible; nor are there fruit trees or legumes, but very little. For what the Giver of all goods, Our Lord God, awarded the sterility of the uninhabitable punas and páramos of such sierras, by raising in them as many of these manse animals as he did not have count or addition of the plenty that were anciently everywhere, that was the only wealth of the natives from the sierra (...)” (Cobo 1956 [1653], quoted in Flores Ochoa 1968: 101). From there to end up saying that camelid domestication and herding are the necessary corollary of the ecological marginality of the Puna does not seem very distant. Neither had it seemed in the classic definition of camelid herding, whose ethnographic reality was assimilated to a ‘region of refuge’ according to the known proposal of Aguirre Beltrán’s acculturation theory (Flores Ochoa 1968: 14).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA From this ethnography, a group of ethnographies and studies on herding communities was going to be developed, but it was within archaeology that the subject of herding acquired its greater dimensions (Browman 1989)11. It is not our interest here to deny or affirm the existence of herders in the punas of the Andes -discussion recently reopened by Rabey (1989)-, but to analyze, instead, the context and content of its definition. As it has been seen, the definition of herders is relatively recent; it was given in a context of redefinition of the terms of possession of the land in the Andes, where the traditional nature of subsistence economies acquired a political weight, and it has been characterized by an emphasis on the similarities to Old World’s shepherding better than by the particularities of the Andean case. We have tried to explain this previous invisibility through cultural prejudice and through the fact that Andean herding is manifested in geographically marginal regions. Anyhow, at last, in the context of an extremely marginal nature, the adaptivist idea has been introduced in the definition of the object, idea that, on the other hand, is not absent in the classic descriptions of Old World shepherding either.

hunting practices. A second domesticating phase is what has been called secondary domestication in a context that was characterized as revolutionary due to its implications for the intensification of production. This phase is based on the appropriation of products that, different to primary ones, can be obtained without killing the animal: milk, wool, freight and pulling strength, manure (Sherratt 1983). It is this secondary domestication the one that allowed the more complete development of herding relationships and incorporated the horse and Old World camelids, among others, to the stock of domesticated animals (Clutton-Brock 1987; Davis 1987; Zarins 1989). In recent studies centred in the Atacama basin, the importance of the really ancient utilization of secondary llama products, such as its wool and freight strength, has been stressed, and the role that these aims could have had in the process of domestication has been suggested (Dransart 1991, 1992; Dillehay and Núñez 1988; Núñez and Dillehay 1978, 1995). With this, the authors intended to call the attention upon other possible scenarios for llama domestication in which the search for sustenance would have played a minor role or, at least, it would have been mediated by other strategies, and, consequently, in which the ecological marginality of the Puna de Atacama would have not acted as an omnipresent motor pushing towards adaptation. Other aspects of social life, as interaction, would acquire major relevance, with the consequent elaboration of group identities in contexts of economic articulation. But, if it is possible that these other aspects would have had a role in domestication processes, it will be necessary to review the semantic content of domestication as concept, because, otherwise, we are in danger of reproducing in theory what has already been introduced in the categories before theory. That is, if it is possible that domestication followed entirely different processes in the Andes and in the Old World, it will also be possible, or necessary, to reformulate the theoretical categories of definition of the object.

Having defined this way herding as object, it would be quite natural that the domestication of South American camelids was focussed from perspectives that are similar to those developed in the Old World for acknowledging the domestication of bovids and ovicaprids (CluttonBrock 1987). Adaptation to a marginal environment in search for sustenance would be, as in the Old World, a content of the object itself even prior to the explanation of its historical origin, that is, the study of domestication. Maybe we can understand, then, the importance that the search for sustenance in the difficult Puna environment has for the archaeological description of domestication (Acuto et al. 1993; Aschero 1994; Aschero, Elkin, and Pintar 1991; Aschero et al. 1993-1994; Aschero, Podestá, and García 1991; Elkin 1992; Escola 1991a, 1991b, 1993, 1996; Escola et al. 1992-1993; Haber 1988, 1991a, 1991b, 1992a, 1993, 1995-1996; Haber et al. 1991; Manzi 1993; Mengoni Goñalons 1991a, 1991b; Nasti 1991, 1993, 1994; Olivera 1988, 1991a, 1991c; Olivera and Nasti 1993a, 1993b; Olivera et al. 1992-1993; Olivera and Podestá 1993, 1995; Pérez 1993; Pintar 1995, 1996; Podestá 1991, 1995; Podestá et al. 1991; Rodríguez and Deginani 1994; Yacobaccio et al. 1994; Yacobaccio and Madero 1991).

The theoretical discussion regarding how animal domestication is defined can be summed up in the confrontation of the definitions of its two main theorists. Bökönyi has expressed that: “The essence of domestication is the capture and taming by man of animals of a species with particular behavioural characteristics, their removal from their natural living area and breeding community, and their maintenance under controlled breeding for mutual benefits” (Bökönyi 1989: 22). It was in his attempt to apply this definition that Rabey doubted the relationship between humans and llamas could qualify inside this category. Actually, Rabey explained that llamas keep their natural living areas and their reproductive communities, and that they are not at all controlled in their breeding. His ethnographic observations in the Puna de Jujuy offered a reality in which llamas are left unattended almost all year, and get in touch with herders only when these must carry a ritual or task that implies them directly (Rabey 1989). Very

But there are other possible scenarios -as there have also been other ones for the Old World. Domestication in the Old World is understood as the succession of two phases. Firstly, there was the primary domestication; oriented to subsistence, whose main interest was meat, though also other primary products such as leather, bone, fat, marrow, etc. This domestication is understood as an extension of 11 One of the most powerful medias for the transference of ethnographic category ‘herder’ to archaeology has been the whole of ethnoarchaeological studies on ‘herding societies’ (Haber 1995-1996; Kuznar 1990; Madero and Yacobaccio 1994; Yacobaccio et al. 1998).

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS similar scenarios were observed in southern Peru (Tomka 1992), northern Chile (Guerrero 1986; Gundermann 1984), and Antofagasta de la Sierra and Antofalla (author’s observations).

certain animal in particular is not one of free access when alive, that it is exclusive -it excludes the neighbour-, and, even more difficult, that it will keep on being so when dead; that is, their final resources will be of restricted and non-shared access (Ingold 1987). Such persuasion is not a casual event and it cannot go unnoticed; it is a precondition for the domestication of animals. That is, society must be capable of structuring itself around a certain kind of access to the resources that is restricted by property norms and not shared by kinship rules any longer. An important corollary to this statement is that a modification in the definition of social groups -the production and consumption units, the families- must be produced (Vicent 1991). Thus, an actual transformation of society -meaning, a domestication of society- must be operated (Ingold 1987). This will be designated as the irruption of domesticity. In that sense, we are no longer talking about relationships between humans and animals, or relationships between humans, but about the relationships between those relationships.

It was Ducos who most strongly criticized the essentialism implicit in Bökönyi’s definition. To him, domestication was a process but it was necessary to establish a break in the continuum. This is characterized by the appropriation of nature by society, for domestication is, before all, a social phenomenon12. Ducos expresses himself the following way: “Domestication can be said to exist when living animals are integrated as objects into the socio-economic organization of the human group, in the sense that, while living, those animals are objects for ownership, inheritance, exchange, trade, etc., as are the other objects (or persons) with which human groups have something to do” (Ducos 1978, quoted in Bökönyi 1989: 23). As in many sheepherding societies (Lewthwaite 1984; Tani 1989), the llama herder puts the natural sociology of the specie to the service of the herding system (Tomka 1992). In what regards camelids, this means gregarious behaviour, polygyny, demarcated territoriality, daily movements between open feeding areas and protected ‘sleeping territories’, and group leadership by only one male. Llamas herd themselves or are herded by the dominant male, and protect themselves of dangers such as the nearness of predators or wind and snow storms. Besides, controlling the reproduction directly is unnecessary; the selection of the dominant male through castration or death of the unwanted males implies the selection of 50% of the genotype of the following generation, and 75% of the second one. Llamas are object of property; they are marked with cuttings in the ears13. Llamas are also objects of heritage and interchange. However, no one would intend to appropriate, inherit, or interchange vicuñas -though vicuñas could live with llamas, eat the same grass, drink the same water, and even sometimes form mixed family groups. Since llamas are uywa (domesticated, with an owner) and vicuñas are salqa (wild, with no owner, herd of the land), the different cultural attitudes are contained in the symbolic world developed by a culture that constitutes itself in the interaction with these animals (Grebe 1984).

As a relationship between relationships, we can understand domesticity as a meta-pattern (Herzfeld 1992). The concept of meta-pattern was proposed by Herzfeld, to whom it is in this theoretical category that archaeology has advantages over other disciplines that, as ethnography, have a more direct access to social specificity. We can introduce the concept of meta-pattern showing first how Herzfeld describes iconic relationships, task for which he uses a comparison with symbolic relationships (Herzfeld 1992). The author postulates that iconic relationships “seem natural” or can be “naturalized” for what, ironically, they are in great part labile (op. cit.: 68). The strength of iconic relationships does not lie on the fact that they are actually less arbitrary than symbolic relationships, but on the fact that they seem to be so (op. cit.: 69). This way, Herzfeld says: “Iconic relationships work well in nationalistic ideologies because they provide the means of collapsing diachronic continuity (a relationship of cultural form through time) into identity (a relationship of cultural form outside time) (...). They bring about a reduction of social strategies to cultural rules; and rules (...) are (...) relations between relations, or what we might call meta-patterns. These are what, for example, Fernández (…) calls ‘structural replications at various levels and various arenas in Fang life’. Such patterns allow individual agents to organize the otherwise chaotic indeterminacies, of social existence. The recognition of a recurrent design is thus not simply an understanding of what is out there; it is a reading of a reading” (Herzfeld 1992: 69, original emphasis).

Seen this way, the current relationship the inhabitants of the punas of the Argentinean Northwest, the Chilean North, the west of Bolivia, and southern Peru establish with llamas is undoubtedly a case of domestication. But this, though it can be an eventual result, does not necessarily imply the modification of the skeletons of the animals but, better -and above all-, a modification of the ‘society’s skeleton’. As Ingold pointed out, it is necessary to convince the former mate of hunt of the fact that

Because of this definition we establish the concept of domesticity, which is related to the concept of ‘segmentation’ Herzfeld re-elaborates from EvansPritchard. Domesticity is a relationship between relationships and, the same as iconicity, carries a reduction of social and economic strategies into cultural

12

A critical point of view can be found in O’Connor (1997). Though it is probable this marking system has a European origin (Henrique Osvaldo Urbano, personal communication, May, 1996). 13

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA norms. Even more than iconic relationships, domestic relationships present themselves as ‘natural’ and ‘familiar’, and, because of that, they are even more omnipresent, though less visible. Paraphrasing Herzfeld, it can be said that it is not that domestic relationships are actually more natural than iconic relationships but that, instead, it is because they seem to be so that they are domestic. Domesticity provides the means for reducing social synchrony -that is, a relationship of cultural form through time- into natural order -that is, a relationship of cultural form outside time. This way, domestic relationships reduce social relationships to natural relationships and, since they convincingly seem natural, they acquire the huge potentiality upon which other levels of social inclusion can be elaborated14.

ordering of social reproduction, even that of the minor groups of inclusion, that is, the domestic units. The domestication of the llama is not the central issue of this work, but the discussion that has been developed up to here is of relevance for its argumentation for two reasons. Firstly, it was necessary to carry a critical reconstruction of the subject of domestication as it is considered in the current literature regarding the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama. This has allowed understanding that there are other possible scenarios for the domestication context that go away from the immediate or long term- search for sustenance. Some authors have suggested that wool and transport could have been elements of significance in contexts of amplified demand of these goods. Secondly, and related to the previous, the weight of domestication has been moved from the relationship with animals towards the social relationships and their representations. In such a scenario, the definition of social groups of appropriation of natural resources acquires a fundamental dimension, as so do the relationships between those social groups. Though explaining the process of domestication of camelids is beyond the reaches of this work, this discussion is relevant since the concepts it involves are constitutive elements of the oasis landscape. Puna oases have been culturally created implying the definition and reproduction of social groups of appropriation -that is, family domestic units that acted as production and consumption units-, the definition and reproduction of relationships that were established between those domestic units -that is, kinship groups-, and the definition and reproduction of relationships of both kinds of social units with groups from other oases or neighbouring regions of lower altitude. Oases have been neither a mainly economic phenomenon, nor a symbolic or social one; oases were a whole of practices and a representation of those practices at the same time. Such practices had to do with agricultural production, land property, work processes, cosmovision; in other words: economy, society, and symbolism at one time. The entire process of construction of oases occurred during a period in which the articulation of the macro-regional space took social groups to two apparently antagonistic strategies: to articulate themselves and, hence, become more dependent, and to define themselves as reproduction groups pretending, thus, autonomy. Oases were the creative answer of Puna populations and became the anomalies of the desert. So, within the Puna context this work focuses, domestication and creation of the oases formed part of a same historical process15.

Domesticity, though it shares these characteristics with segmentation -and there is where they superpose each other-, puts the emphasis on the relationships of transformation of nature. As such, it is the ‘natural’ basis upon which other languages are constructed. Herzfeld, nonetheless, assigns segmentation the following role: “As such, (segmentation) is of far more general significance than any single pattern of social relationship, whether kinship-based or constituted in some other idiom. I would go further, and argue that segmentation is the uniquely primary basis of all social relationships, since its relativistic organization of insider-outsider differentiations is the basis of anything we could conceivably recognize as a structured -that is, patterned and repetitive- social system” (Herzfeld 1992: 79, original emphasis). Maybe it is enough to say that domesticity, in an attempt to incorporate the theory of meta-patterns to the discussion, points out a nuance of the principle of segmentation that is oriented towards practices of transformation of nature. As such, it is strongly rooted in production practices, productive technologies, actions oriented to daily reproduction, that is, subsistence. It is, nonetheless, an entirely social language and, in fact, it builds society’s conditions culturally; that is why it is a cultural shape, and that is why it is through domesticity through where social units of appropriation of nature are defined. In this sense, we are talking about segmentation in the lowest level of inclusion. The relationship between domesticity and segmentation has, then, two particularities. In first place, it is domesticity the one that introduces the natural order as a cultural shape. But, in second place, it is segmentation the one that allows the

Oases had different durations in each case, generally depending on the particular historic conjunctures through which some oases got superposed to enclave landscapes while others did not. In the case of the oases of Antofalla, the first attempts of settlement of enclave landscapes date

14 We prefer to talk about domesticity instead of segmentation, as Herzfeld suggests, because it makes a more direct reference to the dialectic between nature domination -domestication- and naturalization -domination-, and it is precisely this nature the one we are intending to emphasize. Instead, according to Herzfeld, “segmentation is (a) a conceptual idiom that organizes kinship but also many other aspects of social and cultural distance, rather than the definiens of a certain type of kinship, and (b), a replication of the tension between collective selfrecognition and externally directed display at every level of social inclusion and exclusion” (Herzfeld 1992: 79).

15 Though this does not necessarily mean llama domestication as it is traditionally understood.

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS from the nineteenth century, and the logic of an oasis inhabiting an ancient enclave landscape can be observed even nowadays. In a pretty graphic way, it could be said that oases domesticated the Puna many centuries before it was naturalized as Puna de Atacama.

the social speech’s immediate context. In his interpretation of Geertz’s proposal, Ricoeur postulates that the text freezes meanings; these, though they are originated in specific social contexts, get their meaning from something different than the immediacy of their creation. He defines texts as fixers of meaning that separate themselves from their authors and their intentions, entailing a non-ostensive reference and implying themselves in unlimited readings and hearings. This constitutes textual objectivity. Geertz, reading Ricoeur at his time, says that

Having outlined the category of oasis from a theoretical perspective, it is necessary to explicit a theoreticalmethodological discussion regarding the interpretation of material culture because such discussion is implied in the notion of oasis. As Herzfeld suggested for segmentation, it could be proposed that domesticity is of relatively direct access for archaeology; since it has to do, mainly, with practices of objectification of nature, it is characterized by materiality. This remits to a theory and a methodology of interpretation of material culture.

“The key to the transition from text to text analogue, from writing as discourse to action as discourse, is, as Paul Ricoeur has pointed out, the concept of "inscription": the fixation of meaning. (…) The great virtue of the extension of the notion of text beyond things written on paper or carved into stone is that it trains attention on precisely this phenomenon: on how the inscription of action is brought about, what its vehicles are and how they work, and on what the fixation of meaning from the flow of events -history from what happened, thought from thinking, culture from behavior- implies for sociological interpretation” (Geertz 1994: 44-45).

Hodder, one of the most influential authors in the conformation of a theory and a methodology of material culture, was maybe one of the first ones in pointing out the differences between material symbols and linguistic symbols. To this author, the arbitrariness of the sign finds in material culture the limit that is given by the practical functionality of objects (Hodder 1982d: Chapter 10). At the same time, he was and still is one of the leaders of the position -frequently identified as post-processual, or contextual, or interpretative archaeology- according to which it is possible to establish an analogy between material culture and textual culture, which allows, then, the application of interpretative theories developed in the wide field of text interpretation and linguistic shapes in general, to the newer field of symbolic interpretation of material culture. Thus, we will continue to develop a critical approach to the position that defends what can be called ‘the textual metaphor’. In the following section, we point out the reaches and limitations of such position for the archaeological study of domesticity. Finally, that will give room to the enunciation of the material shapes of domesticity. These can be considered part of a tropology16 of material culture -though not through an analogy with the rhetoric of the text but by focusing on its own specificity. The theoretical-methodological construction intends to find in the oases the interjections between the roads of knowledge and those of domesticity.

The textual metaphor has a double interpretation in archaeology. This is, at the same time, more restricted though equivalent to the one developed in anthropology. The textual metaphor in archaeology is mainly, though not exclusively, applied to material culture. Influenced by post-modern ethnography (Clifford and Marcus 1986), archaeology has seen the archaeologist as author and, hence, it has analyzed the archaeological texts as genre (Evans 1989, 1994; Haber and Delfino 1995-1996; Hodder 1989c; Moran and Hides 1990; Shanks 1995c; Sinclair 1989). The relevant issue to be analyzed in here is, instead, the understanding of material culture as text. We will mention some antecedents, we will present the main textualist proposals from Cambridge’s postprocessual archaeology, and, finally, we will suggest some of the limits of the textual metaphor standpoint, especially those that are more significant to the archaeological interpretation of domesticity. Since the early 1980s, archaeology17 has been involved with the conception of material culture as text. This was, actually, the theoretical-methodological element of strongest opposition to processual archaeology, whose strongly functionalist and materialist tendencies did little for the symbolic and meaningful aspects of prehistoric cultures (Hodder 1982c; Renfrew 1994).

From the Textual Metaphor to a Tropology of the Oasis With more or less self-criticism, the theory of symbolic interpretation of the material culture has preferred to follow the analogy between material culture and text. The textual metaphor in contemporary anthropology is based upon the assumption of humans as “animals that are symbolic, conceptualizing, and in search of meanings” (Geertz 1987). As it has been elaborated by Geertz, the textual metaphor starts from the consideration of cultural texts as references of public meanings that are external to the interlocutors and persistent despite the temporality of 16

The first non-processual ethnoarchaeological experiences Hodder made in Zambia, Sudan, and Kenya were 17 Though it would not be unfair to say that, at that time, they were just a bit more than a small group of archaeologists from the Department of Archaeology of Cambridge University, England. To that extent, it is worth rereading Muller’s acid view of Cambridge post-processual archaeology as the resurrection of that Department’s traditional liberalism (Muller 1991).

In the sense of ‘enunciation of rhetorical forms’.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA oriented to observe what the material artefacts’ stylistic variability answered to in a particular ethnographic context. In a work that, though it constitutes the breaking up experience with processual archaeology, does not go too far away from classical British anthropological tradition, Hodder (1982a) insists on the significant nature of material objects and on their independence from functional variables as demographic pressure or technological efficiency. Objects vary according to their social meanings within the particular frame of the society’s kinship structure.

Frankfurt circle, centres itself on power and domination relationships within social practice and on generation of knowledge. Shanks, Tilley, and Miller are the most relevant representatives. The text is seen as a narrative to be de-codified too, but the social conditions under which material culture and other narratives are interpreted so to reinforce and reproduce dominant social structures are more important. (c) Finally, and really close to the previous group, Leone, McGuire, and Wylie, with the strong influence of the first Habermas and Althusser, make an opener political criticism to the production of archaeological texts, their uses, and to how material culture is used for generating those texts and the audiences they serve20. It is quite difficult to fully apply this classifying proposal Patterson made, especially once the 1990s had started. In first place, a series of positions that are quite difficult to classify within these groups some of which do not hide their critical look towards the positions of one or another of the just named authorshave appeared in the 1990s (Bapty 1989; Buchli 1995; Criado 1989, 1991; Johnsen and Olsen 1992; Moran and Hides 1990; Nordbladh and Yates 1990; Yates 1990). Secondly, many of the authors Patterson classified mainly the ones of the third group (Thomas 1995)- resist being called post-processual, and many others have abandoned the term post-processual in favour of the more preferred ‘interpretative archaeology’21 (Shanks and Hodder 1995). Finally, there is a series of texts that oscillate between the different groups, among which there is no lack of texts with inter-group co-authory (for example Shanks and Hodder [1995], or Shanks and McGuire [1996]). Not intending to pretend that there has been a progression from structuralism towards hermeneutics going through post-structuralism, it is interesting to analyze how these different perspectives influenced archaeology. At least, it cannot be pretended that one perspective was overcome by another in archaeology more than it happened in literature, humanist, and social studies (Giddens 1991). To make things even more confusing, the influences of the different perspectives regarding archaeology were produced at a same time, for which the capability to differentiate theoretical concepts was acquired through time [as for example, Johnsen and Olsen’s criticisms (1992) to Collingwood’s influence in Hodder’s work, or Hodder’s self-criticism to his early use of structuralism (Hodder 1989a, 1989b)].

Even in the strongly critical context of 1980s postprocessual archaeology, explicit references to archaeological antecedents are included in an attempt to extend the textual metaphor to material culture. Parker Pearson, for example, quotes Childe as predecessor of a similar proposition regarding the visibility of funerary rituals in contexts of reordering of status positions (Parker Pearson 1982)18. Though many authors have attempted to discriminate that of structuralism, poststructuralism, and hermeneutics that is there in the work of 1980s post-processualists (Hodder 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1992a; Tilley 1990b), it is actually a really difficult task. Besides, the difficulty becomes even greater the more one goes back through that decade. This is due to the fact that, at that time -even though Hodder’s initial quest was directed towards structuralism (following Leach’s observation regarding the fact that archaeology, always following the steps of ethnology but behind, would embrace structuralism the same way it had done before with functionalism [Leach 1973])-, it already included a series of criticisms to structuralism that had been given inside post-structuralism, and a strong emphasis on the works of hermeneutic authors such as Ricoeur and Gadamer. Despite that, sometimes, the appearance of philosophical orthodoxy has been used as a rhetorical resource, at that time, the focus of the archaeologists’ interest was not on the theoretical purity or the orthodoxy of one or other author. Since the true challenge for archaeology was to prove the possibility of studying the symbolic in the ancient past through material remains, the attention was fixed there, and not so much on separating theoretical orientations within social sciences19. According to Patterson (1990b), post-processual archaeologies can be classified in three groups: (a) A group identified as ‘Hodderian’, which is guided by the work of philosopher and historian Collingwood and by the works of Bourdieu, Geertz, Giddens, and Ricoeur, being Moore and Hodder himself its main representatives (1982). They focus material culture as analogue to a text that has to be de-codified and manipulated by diverse actors and that, hence, is accessible to the archaeologist. (b) A second group, more influenced by Foucault and the

Eventually, towards the late 1970s and the early 1980s, a group of archaeologists that did not agree with the functionalism of processual archaeology was attracted to structuralism (Hodder 1982a, 1982b; Miller and Tilley 1984; Shanks and Tilley 1987a, 1987b; Washburn 1983). Though it did not have direct influence in England, a first attempt of structuralist archaeology was led by LeroiGourhan (1965). In another relevant antecedent,

18 For an explicit Childean genealogy of post-processual approach, see also Leone (1982). 19 To see to what extent the challenge still stands, see Tilley (1993a).

20 This last group, though related to the others, is the only one that is not based on Cambridge. 21 Using the English adjective interpretive instead of interpretative.

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS Washburn made a formal analysis on ware decoration in terms of symmetry rules (1983). To this author, the identified motif on the decoration of the pot’s surface is not important itself; instead, what should be considered is the way in which the motifs are organized according to symmetric relationships, that is, their decorative structure. Symmetry rules are static and describe the existent decoration. As part of his ethnoarchaeological studies in Africa and applying Chomskian concepts regarding generative capability of grammatical rules, Hodder analyzed the rules or motif disposition of the Nuba squashes (Hodder 1982a). From such rules, the generation of all the other existent decorations could be inferred. The strictly formal nature of these analyses turns, in other cases, into true attempts to interpret the meaning of some dispositions. For example, in an analysis of the Dutch Neolithic ware Early and Late LBK, Rösen, TRB, and PFB, Hodder (1982b) classified motifs into delimited and non-delimited. The author established a relationship between the delimited nature of the motif and the delimited nature of kinship groups what he would later consider little convenient because it did not take into account contextual meanings (Hodder 1988; and a sharper critic in Osborn 1996). In a very much similar perspective, Shanks and Tilley analyzed the decoration of the Neolithic (TRB) ware of Fjälkinge 9, a passage tomb in Scania, southern Sweden. They combined the analysis of the ‘generative grammar’ in the decoration of the pottery that had been found in the grave, with an analysis of the contexts of finding of the ware, spatially -left, centre, and right of the grave’s entry, beside it or further away-, as well as temporally -the four phases that had been delimited in the stratigraphy of the grave- (Shanks and Tilley 1987a). All these analysis went away from structuralism for they were committed to the delimitation of historically contextualized structures instead of Lévi-Straussian universal structures. Anyway, material culture has been read as a meaningful system that forms a communicative ‘text’, analogically structured to language, which can be ‘read’ by the archaeologist. The focus of attention of these works is the recurrent generative principles that give order and meaning to the observed and contextually situated artefacts. Structuralism was used by these works as methodological tool for the analysis of the material dispositions and as epistemological criticism to the dominant empirism in archaeology. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the meaning of the identified structures followed roads that were nearer to Marxist, hermeneutic, and poststructuralist perspectives. The implicit tension ended up exposing the contradictions of this as experimental as discontinuous structuralism of Cambridge.

own. The structures of meaning could be understood inside the active context of the individuals’ social life, going away from the previous structuralist position that implied an underlying omnipresence. French poststructuralism, especially the works of Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, and Ricoeur, and the critical theory of the Frankfort circle, especially those of Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, Horckheimer, and the first Habermas, had a decisive influence23. The main post-structuralist influence was the change of focus from language to text24. When writing a text, grammatical rules and structures are used. On material texts -for example on the production of ceramic pots or funerary rituals- structuring principles of space organization are used too. The difference lies on the fact that the creator or creators of such texts do not want to be understood in relationship to an abstract code; the text is produced to do something, to have a particular social effect: to be believed, respected, distinguished, listened. Thus, textual writing is like acting; is ‘mis-en-scene’ using the rules but manipulating them in relationship with social means. When the text is read it does not have a correct shape. The text itself does not have a meaning outside its reading. That is why it is of an ambiguous and polysemic nature (Tilley 1989)25. 23 Many works have taken care of criticizing the structuralist position within archaeology from points of view closer to post-structuralism, for example, Babty and Yates 1990; Hodder 1988, 1989a; Shanks and Tilley 1987a; Tilley 1989, 1990b. 24 Tilley showed how the post-structuralist criticism to structuralism, since it stressed the distance between an abstract language and a particular text written in it, still framed itself inside the Saussurian conception of language (Tilley 1989). 25 An example will allow illustrating the use of the textual metaphor in symbolic interpretation within archaeology. Tilley made an interpretation of a group of rupestrian engravings in northern Sweden, at the district of Nämforsen (Bradley 1993; Clottes 1993; Malmer 1993; Nordbladh 1993; Tilley 1990a, 1991, 1993b; Whitley 1993; a more recent interpretation of rupestrian art can be found in Tilley 1994b). The engravings were assigned to the period that is comprehended between 3,500 and 2,000 B.C. Around 1,700 designs were documented along both sides of a 500 meters segment of the Angerman River, and at two islands that are located in the middle of the river course, in a place of strong flows and violent rapids. These designs use the same limited quantity of motifs once and again. All the designs are representative, grouping into seven kinds: moose, boats, humans, fish, birds, shoe soles, and tools. Moose and boats represent, respectively, the 55% and 27% of the total of designs. Moose were interpreted in terms of hunting magic or totem notions, while boats, in a centre-periphery interpretation, would have represented the relevance of trading relationships between the hunters-collectors-fishermen of Nämforsen and the prosperous agricultural communities from the Scandinavian Bronze Age. The district has also been considered as an important ritual centre or as preferential district for moose hunting or salmon fishing due to the rapids. On his side, Tilley considered each one of the separated 234 engraved surfaces as an individual structural unit. He understood the pre-historic act of engraving a particular motif on a particular place on a rocky surface as an act of parole ruled by the underlying langue of the engraving on stone in general. Analyzing the engraved rocky surfaces, the author built a relational grammar of designs, that is, he delimited the association rules of different types of designs engraved on a same surface. For example, among the engraved surfaces in which there was only one of the seven different types of designs, he noticed that human beings never appeared alone. According to Tilley, these have a purely relational signification, that is, they can only occur in association with other different types of design. Also, there is only one rocky surface in

The true break-up with structuralism22, with which they could not progress much either, was led by postprocessualists when they took the criticisms poststructuralism had already made to structuralism as their 22 Though certain structuralist elements have remained in Hodder’s work (1990).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA If we assume that material culture is significantly constituted, then, there are ideas and concepts inserted in social life that influence the way in which that one is made, used, and thrown away. As Patrik put it, archaeological data can be better compared to a text than to a fossil record (Patrik 1985). Hodder postulated that archaeologists always work inside a double hermeneutic: they do not only deal with a physical ‘fossil’ record organized by universal natural processes, but also with meanings that were constructed by other people inside a different framework of meaning; they do not only have to deal with meanings, but, also, with the meanings ‘of them’ (Hodder 1992a). Shanks and Tilley had already presented the archaeological interpretation inside a fourfold hermeneutics, including the hermeneutic of having to work inside the contemporary discipline of archaeology and the hermeneutic of living inside the contemporary society as active participant, besides the hermeneutic of trying to understand a strange culture and the hermeneutic implied in the transcendence between past and present (Shanks and Tilley 1987a). A text is written to mean something, it must be understood inside a meaningful framework, and, thus, it must be translated from ‘its’ meanings to ‘ours’.

past and people from the present give different meanings to the same object, emphasizes the textual aspect from the side of the reading. The meaning of a text -or the one of material culture- lives less in its production and intention than in its interpretation. Thus, from this perspective, the object has no meaning until it is read. From a position more inspired in Derrida’s work, Yates considered that the main purpose of the textual metaphor was to break up with the notion of past as record (Haber and Scribano 1993; Patrik 1985; Yates 1990a; 1990b). To Yates, material culture is actively read by the archaeologist. The meaning of material culture is built through its location inside a network of differences, a network of significants. Each significant works because of its differences with other significants. Material culture is read in its different meanings and is located in relationship with different chains of significants in the present (Yates 1990a, 1990b). Thus, this post-structuralist construction of the textual metaphor implies the impossibility of reaching any original past meaning. That is, we cannot get to what material culture meant in the past ‘for them’, and this is due to the fact that material objects do not have any meaning by themselves, not even in the past. In the past as well as in the present, the meanings of objects depend on how these are read. As the Derridean dictum “there is nothing outside the text”, Yates emphasized the chains of differences in the present: “Only and always there is difference” (Yates 1990a; see as well Olsen 1990; Owoc 1989).

In his African ethnoarchaeological studies, Hodder (1982a) believed that in a particular culture everyone would give the same meaning to an object if it was conceived as text. But soon after that, he introduced the idea according to which different people inside a same society would see the world and the material culture differently. And this notion, that is, that people from the

In a somewhat different position, Hodder started assuming the existence of original meanings for a text: the patterns of the material culture are real. In his interpretation of Neolithic graves as houses, Hodder elaborated an interpretative discourse with pretensions of referring to meanings in the past. But of course he accepted a text could be read in infinite ways. The difference in Hodder’s postulation lies on the emphasis he puts on the context. The people, both of the past and of the present, use contexts to avoid the meaning to drain in chains of significants. The subjective readings of the world are translated into objective material actions, actions that are written in material remains. Stable and defined relationships that allow the reader recognizing and understanding the meanings are established in material contexts. As Barret (1987) stated, archaeologists deal with a material context that restricts and canalizes the possible meanings by closing the chains of significants (Yates 1990a). The reading of material texts is restricted by the material possibilities and the associations, similarities, and differences that the evidence presents. But if the context itself is not contextually defined, how is it defined? By imposing a context, we have already decided, before starting, how the past was like. Hodder answers this problem by denying, again, that the archaeologist simply imposes his ideas to the past. The actual material similarities and differences form the necessary basis for the definition of sites, regions, cultures, and other types of contexts.

Nämforsen where the seven types of design appear at the same time, and the interesting thing is that, in this surface, a unique design appears for first and only time: a circle with an inner cross. This engraved surface is located exactly on the centre of the area of engravings, in the most inaccessible island. Tilley tried then to establish a design grammar for the site upon the basis of differences and relationships between designs and defined, hence, a central surface of engraving. He considered, therefore, the relationships between different types of designs. Two designs, moose and boats, appeared in a defined series of associations, including lineality -they are disposed in rows-, opposition they are mutually one in front of the other-, superposition, and relational displacement in association to other kinds of design -for example, moose in central position and boats in marginal areas. Besides, almost every boat had moose’s heads in its prows. But, so to interpret the meaning of these associations, Tilley needed to go further. He observed that moose hardly ever had their horns marked, and when they did, they had an amazing resemblance with boats. Assuming we were talking about defined decisions and not technical incompetence or mere coincidences, Tilley interpreted that an ambiguous association between moose and boats was being created. But since 99% of the moose did not have horns, Tilley considered that those were female moose, which naturally do not have horns. So, moose represented a feminine principle, while boats represented a masculine one. He established then a relationship moose : boat :: feminine : masculine But Tilley went beyond this in the classifying field so to extend the relationships to moose : boat :: Group A : Group B :: wife/husband givers : wife/husband takers case in which moose and boats are used as signs of different social groups that take part in trading relationships, including marriage trading circuits in which wife/husband givers are ‘feminine’ and wife/husband takers are ‘masculine’.

44

THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS they are partially constitutive of past and present worlds of thought and speak. Through the repetition of similarities and differences, and under the assumption of universality of the role of opposition structures in the creation of symbolic meanings26, the construction of contexts in the past allows the present reconstruction of practical meanings (Hodder 1989b)27.

“While we read the material texts in changing ways, the interpretations are always influenced by the actual material patterns. The contexts we impose interact with actual contexts that were left as material foot prints. Hence, the past, from my point of view, is relatively autonomous from the present” (Hodder 1992). And this autonomy has wider consequences for the Hodderian version of archaeology: “It is not difficult to impose the present to the past. It is easy to construct the past as an ideological mirror of ourselves. This way the past becomes passive. It is more difficult to give the past an active role. But the experience of the past might illuminate the present if it gains the authority its partial autonomy gives it. Only by being objectively different can the past confront the present and contribute to it” (Hodder 1992b: 166).

26 That is the structuralist residue that, actually, is nothing but the main, if not only, theoretical element that British archaeology adopted from structuralism. 27 See, as paradigmatic example, Hodder’s interpretation of Neolithic graves as houses, which he later develops in an article (1984) and in a book (1990), and which was argued, among others, by Bogucki (1987) and Midgley (1985). Hodder lists eight similarities between both terms of the comparison. First, long houses and long graves have rectangular or trapezoidal shapes -though the formal similarity does not imply size equivalence, for long graves are usually bigger than long houses. Second, in trapezoidal houses and graves, the entrance is located at the biggest side, and in long graves, the main burial chamber and the facade of the entrance are located at the biggest side too. Third, houses as well as graves tend to have their biggest axis aligned from west to east or from northwest to southeast. Fourth, the entrances of both kinds of structures generally face east or southeast. Fifth, in houses as well as in graves, there is an emphasis on the entrance -which Hodder develops when treating the concept of foris. The activities and rituals of the house are concentrated there, being the entry area often remarked by internal divisions, and the trapezoidal shape centred by the height and width of the entrance. Meanwhile, the long mounds and passage graves frequently have big entrances, sometimes with ‘horns’ pointing out towards, front patios with evidences of rituals and offerings, and antechambers that distinguish the external area from the internal one with many artefacts, and the inner graves with a few artefacts among the human remains. Sixth, long Danubian houses have a lineal gradation of space that consists on a triple division of lines of transversal posts; in long funerary mounds, there are also subdivisions that might imply a front to back gradation of space. In 1984, Hodder had as well proposed similarities regarding the decoration and the lateral ditches, but in 1990, he considered those arguments little convincing; in that opportunity he added two new arguments that had been given by his critics. Seventh, houses and graves tend to form group patterns village type. Eighth, according to Midgley (1985), in certain areas, long funerary mounds are placed in sites where settlements of long houses had been previously located. But Hodder did not propose a copy or direct diffusion between the constructors of long houses and the posterior constructors of long graves. Instead, he suggested continuity in the principles through which houses and graves had been constructed. These would have been the principles of monumentality and lineal ordering of the space, from which the long houses as well as the long graves could have been derived from, though being applied to two different spheres of life: settlement and burial. Graves could have meant the ‘house’ of the dead and could have referred to houses, though not always directly to previous lineal houses, because we must take into account that long houses were rarely built after 3,300 B.C., and graves, for example at the Paris basin, began to be constructed after 3,300 B. C., after the disappearance of Chassey culture. In this example of interpretation of long graves as houses, Hodder found a series of material restrictions shape, size, orientation, use, function- that limited the range of possible interpretations. On the other hand, long houses and long graves shared the same symbolic context that is implied by the historic continuity of the principles of monumentality and lineality, which finally are a same expression of the domus in terms of a particular way of domestication of the wild. That is, Hodder’s reading of the material culture was presented in terms of settlement of the practical contexts that delimit the possible meanings of the material symbols. On his side, Bradley suggests a nonsymbolic relationship between houses and graves that includes the processes of collapse of the houses and the formation of embankments that, by themselves, could have been the prototype of the long funerary mounds, with which he avoids calling for structural principles of doubtful entity (Bradley 1996).

We will continue to analyze the nature of material symbols, those with which material texts are written. Throughout the 1980s, Hodder and his associates emphasized the arbitrary nature of material symbols (Hodder 1985, 1989b). But some time later, he himself noticed the significance that material considerations which can be universal- had for the delimitation of arbitrary meanings. “The materiality of material culture allows some emphasis to be placed on universals and these universals provide clues or an initial key as to enter another context. A link can be made between past and present contexts by material universals” (Hodder 1992:170). It was Hodder himself, in his proposal of the textual metaphor for archaeology, who pointed out the differences between material culture and written texts (1989b). Firstly, while texts are written in relationship with particular social contexts, words themselves are arbitrary if related to their meanings; material culture usually constitutes indexes or icons, or is restricted in some other way in material social terms. Secondly, texts are read in a lineal sequence so that the order of words helps the understanding of the reader; in the material culture, there are little starting points and no reading sequences, but material culture gives a more immediate shape to its meanings in the contexts of use, in which they gain a more obvious functional meaning than in abstract communication codes. Finally, texts are read only through two senses, sight and hearing; the understanding of the material culture includes as well touch, smell and taste, reason for which, instead of reading the past, it would be more appropriate to talk about feeling or seeing the past (Hodder 1989b). As it was presented a decade and a half ago, the contextual approach consisted in placing the objects in their contexts of use (Gibbs 1987; Hodder 1987a, 1987b, 1988; Moore 1987; Sørensen 1987). This is the methodological key of the work in which Hodder presented his reinterpretation of the European Neolithic (Hodder 1990). The meanings of the associations and practical contrasts are not given by a separate world of speak; they are restricted by the material properties and 45

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Disembowelling the intellectual discourse through which the textual metaphor has become instrumental to the conceptualization of material culture in contemporary archaeology would not be a complete task if we do not ask about the limits that this same metaphor imposes to the theoretical and methodological perspective it helped to develop. But it would be, besides, a useless task since what we are intending is its critical reconstruction. Before anything, we have to characterize the textual metaphor in its role within archaeology. As it has been exposed above, the consideration of material culture as a text has not been a theme itself but a way through which archaeologists have developed a new understanding of their object and an (or some) appropriate methodology for its interpretation. Even though processual archaeology has not been a stranger to the literary metaphor for the description of its object, it is understandable that we are talking about a necessary though marginal movement to its theoretical proposal28.

a written text. While this does not imply that there is no meaning in the objects or that their meanings are not related to some coherence, we do not look at things around us as if we were reading a page. Instead, this would only imply that material objects mean different ways than written ones. So that we start from the most obvious, material objects are material, they refer to their materiality. That is, objects connote instrumental relationships with other materials. Texts, instead, denote a meaning and the possibility of their reading, their interpretation. It is in the connotative level where material objects open themselves to their possible meanings. The materiality of objects, furthermore, turns then into directly visible. We do not have to ‘put ourselves to read’ to see material objects. But even though we see them, their meanings are not directly read. They are directly visible, but their meanings are indirect. This is what Herzfeld tried to say when he stated the differences between symbolic relationships and iconic relationships, being these apparently more natural than those. That is, the material culture has meanings that reproduce themselves from practice to practice without needing any mediation of speech between them, without the need of such meanings being ‘made conscious’. This quality of implicit meaning is what has been recently focused from phenomenological approaches that are oriented by the reading of Heidegger’s work, allowing a great opening to theoretical categories that were previously peripheral to theoretical archaeology (Gosden 1994; Karlsson 1997; Thomas 1996; Tilley 1994a).

It is with post-processual archaeology (and now with its literary acceptance of ‘after processual’ archaeology) when the understanding of the object is conduced through the conceptualization of a symbolic system. And it is precisely this idea the one that the text brings to the understanding of material culture. That the material culture is significant implies that there is some coherence in the symbolic production that allows its interpretation; at least if we begin assuming that the interpretation of the meaning is possible29 (Hodder 1995b). No one intends to read a text without previously having understood it is a text, that is, coherently related symbols that can be read. If we did not have the idea that what we have in front of us is a text, we would not look at it with the implicit intention of reading it. The idea of certain coherence is what the textual metaphor puts in material symbols30 so to make the development of post-processual archaeology -that is, the symbolic interpretation of the material culture of the past- possible. But, it is appropriate to ask ourselves: Does material culture share the same type of coherence the words that form a text do? Continuing with the same simple example, maybe to turn to the material objects does not imply the same implicit supposition in the attitude towards them as the one we could assume for

Their materiality, at the same time, implies an idea of duration that texts do not have; while temporality is an implicit dimension in many material objects (Criado 1991, 1995; Gosden 1994; Thomas 1996), it is something that texts and symbols must explicit. This implicit nature of temporality of the material objects is what, among other things, characterizes the archaeological objects, the ruins (Schnapp 1991, 1993; Shanks 1992, 1995a). But ruins, for example, do no mean the ancient but, better, they imply the effects of time in an immediate and implicit manner. Other material objects, more resistant to time than ruins -or to which time has not passed that much so to ruin them-, connote temporality in a direct way too. For example, monuments imply resistance to time: they come from a time that is previous to the one that the live generations live, but they are nowadays used by them.

28

This means that the fact that processual archaeologists had to use linguistic analogies such as record or palimpsest, implies an implicit acknowledgement of the linguistic mediation in the process of knowledge -despite the operationalists and nominalists attempts (for example, in Dunnell 1977). But the empirism in which the preunderstanding of the object is covered does not allow anything but considering those metaphors as mere linguistic resources that do not disturb the preceptor’s objectivity at all. 29 Assumption that ceases to be so as soon as the argument of communicative reflexivity is introduced (Giddens 1991). 30 Nonetheless, if the reader’s attitude towards a text implies the previous idea of text, then, the pre-understanding of textual coherence can only be originated in the experience, historically situated, of textual interpretation and reading. Closer to Goody than to Derrida, the experience of the text is historical and cannot be assumed in moments that are previous to it. From this perspective, the textual analogy would be counter-historical, for it implies the experience of the text in moments that are previous to the use of writing.

But individuals do not move between objects the same way they do in front of a text either. Corporality is directly related to material culture, allowing a perception that not only goes beyond sight, incorporating the other senses, but also further within it, incorporating the experiences of the constituting physicality of the subject (Giddens 1984). This has led to a growing interest in corporality as a fundamental aspect of the mediation between individual and world (Yates 1993), perspective that has been taken in the interpretation of funerary rituals 46

THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS (Barrett 1994b; Isbell 1997; Parker Pearson 1993), personal garments (Shanks 1995b; Treherne 1995), and architecture (Moore 1996; Parker Pearson and Richards 1994a, 1994b).

political and cultural aspects (Cosgrove 1993; Olwig 1993; Thomas 1993b), this notion allows a way out from the more deterministic positions without implying a disregard for the environment. It is because the notion of landscape embraces, at one time, the conceptual and the physical (Gosden and Head 1994), that it has synthetic value. Landscape is related to space from a situated position, the point of view. Thus, the landscape perspective is related to the practices from which it is perceived. But it is also directly related to history, for landscape manifests, in a somewhat horizontal superposition, the consecutive transformations that have been historically operated (Roberts 1996). At the same time, the category of landscape includes the spots that, resisting the pass of time, naturalize history (Criado 1995). This way, landscape is, above all, a synthetic category of time and space and a mediatory category between nature and culture. Seen from this perspective, which emphasizes the relational aspects (Johnson 1998), and taking into account the discussion about domesticity we have developed in the previous section, landscape becomes a category that is highly concordant to the purpose of describing the oasis. It is precisely through its natural appearance that domesticity is such an omnipresent and persuasive representation, that metapattern that reduces social and economic strategies to cultural norms, that is, social synchrony -the historic context- to natural order -the ahistoric-. The category of oasis landscape allows systematizing the material aspects of domesticity.

Hence, the meanings of the material culture are built and interpreted in more practical than theoretical ways, in ways that are closer to the daily living, the routine, and the common, than to the different and the objectified, ways that are more obvious than discursive and, thus, more persuasive, deep, and enduring. That is why archaeology has recently become significant in the field of the studies on material culture (Miller and Tilley 1996). The importance of this discussion lies on the fact that, if the meaningfulness of the material culture is different to that of a text, then, we would have to quit the textual metaphor as interpretation model for material culture or, at least, quit to consider it as the dominant one. The textual metaphor is not adequate for interpreting the whole range of ways of representation material culture implies. Thus, it is righteous to distrust those theories more strongly based on textual or linguistic ways of representation in their more general sense. There is where the limitations of semiotic, structuralist, post-structuralist, and hermeneutic approaches to material culture lie. It is not that they are not valid, but they become invalid when they intend to constitute themselves into universal models of interpretation. Archaeology has tried to find tropes or rhetorical forms in the material culture in resemblance to textual tropes such as the metaphor, the metonymy, the comparison, the synecdoche, etc., intending this way the incorporation of a theory and a methodology that, as contextual archaeology, would allow it a symbolic interpretation31. Nonetheless, these archaeologies’ most encouraging results are those that, as the ones mentioned in previous paragraphs, have gone away from the textual metaphor (even when some of their authors have preferred continuing to ascribe to post-processual textualism, for example the ‘solid metaphors’ [Tilley 1999]), and have incorporated categories that are marginal to textuality, such as landscape, monument, and body32.

Firstly, we have to take into account that landscape, as synthesis of time and space, is constructed by practices as well as it constructs them (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984). In this sense -that is, in its reflexivity aspect-, we have to see which the cultural shapes that relate space and time to nature and culture are. There are two cultural shapes that allow characterizing the relationship between space and time in the oasis. Firstly, the monument: it is a cultural shape that implies a foundational event, that is to say, one that structures future routines. The monument is highly visible and enduring, and, as such, is oriented to the future as it is perceived. In this sense, the monument is interpretable in terms of iconicity, since it usually reduces the diachronic continuity to group identity, putting social synchrony out of time, and establishing a genealogy that becomes materially marked by the monument. The monument, originated in previous generations, naturalizes the genealogy of the present ones. It is no longer a narrative of the genealogic succession, but a cultural shape outside the temporal context. This gives social relationships not a historical but a des-contextualized temporality (Barrett 1994b; Criado 1995; Edmonds 1993; Isbell 1997; Kirk 1993; Richards 1993; Thomas 1993a).

Maybe the most synthetic and stimulating category of all these is the one of landscape. The category of landscape is not one of easy definition, because its richness lies precisely on certain degree of ambiguity. For a start, landscape implies a way of representation of the perceived nature. Even when the historic development of this way of representation of nature might be related to 31

The disagreement with the notions of ‘discourse’ and ‘practice’ shows that current models of cultural action are also narrow if focused from an ethnographic perspective -which has led to the development of theories of afectiveness (Reddy 1997). 32 Thomas (1996) has defended the textual metaphor though, following the criticisms, he re-defined text, widening its reaches so to incorporate other ways of expression. The utility of keeping on talking about text, then, does not seem very convincing.

Secondly, the sediment: it is a cultural shape that implies the reduction of the social synchrony to natural succession. It implies the daily deposition of objects related to the practices of appropriation of nature, so that 47

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA structured according to the very structures which the mind applies to it” (Bourdieu 1977: 91)33.

each daily deposition gets superposed to the previous ones -of which only a few are kept in mind-, getting to form, sometimes, actual stratigraphies (Carandini 1984, 1997; Harris 1991). This way, the spatial-temporal paths of daily life and the individual biography are inscribed in diachronic successions of a longer time, which is materialized in similar events of deposition. This cultural shape is so inserted in the practices that it is, as a whole, material, in the sense of non-discursive. Its natural character, which is printed by its daily nature, makes each act of sedimentation relate the action to a stratigraphy of other similar acts, for what daily living -the experience of the social diachrony- gets included in a cultural frame of natural appearance. Objects are routinely deposited between the stones of the walls by the individual, other acquaintances, or previous inhabitants. It is a subtle accumulation of remains of daily practices, as if it was a natural accumulation; an accumulation of the daily self of the individual over previous daily selves. Thus, a tell is formed through the accumulation of superpositions of households and refuses of their activities where there already is a stratigraphy of occupations, for what, this way, the present occupation gets inserted in stratigraphy. In a very convincing way, sediment as cultural shape inscribes the daily routine in a stratigraphic series whose origin and, very likely, whose end, are outside the particular context of production of that routine. In this sense, sediment is the cultural shape that more persuasively produces a domestic landscape.

Steps towards the Oasis The oasis is manifested at different spatial scales. These scales are spaces of practice and, thus, spaces with time. The domestic scale, strictu sensu, is defined by the regionalization that the limits of the architecture of the houses impose to it. The space of the household is the space of definition of the minimum social units. Domestic architecture configures a contention space for interaction at the smallest level of inclusion, defining the context of co-presence in which the generative dispositions of the social units -that is, the ones that produce- are reproduced. Architecture, besides, defines an inner space by opposition to an outer space, and, more important, represents the clearest and most evident materialization of the possibility of sedimentation (Parker Pearson and Richards 1994a, 1994b). Domestic architecture, that artefact through which the spaces of primary socialization are defined, can be constructed as monument, but, at the same time, architecture constructs the relationships as sediments (Locock 1994). The household’s space implies a regionalization of the routines through which the identity of the individual is constructed at the same time that this incorporates the dispositions that are related to certain definitions of the social functions (Lane 1994). In a very persuasive way, the house constitutes the scenario in which domesticating relationships reproduce the relationships of being domesticated and vice versa (Barrett 1994a).

But sediment as cultural shape does not necessarily confronts with monument, because the accumulations of sediments can, occasionally, act as monuments. These are the cases in which the succession of daily leftovers gets interrupted, for what these are reinterpreted as the product of a unique founding event. Sediments and monuments can be stratigraphically (Harris 1991) and chronologically (Bayliss and Orton 1994) differentiated. In fact, both are cultural shapes through which routine is submitted to a natural order. That is why they constitute the most important shape in the construction of domesticity. Both produce and are produced by practices of appropriation of nature that, at the same time, produce and are produced by the subjects of this appropriation, that is, the selfdefined groups. The limit between domesticity and iconicity seems so subtle because the processes through which nature is produced as an object of social appropriation are the same as those through which the subjects that appropriate that nature are produced. Subjects and objects are produced at a same time and, in this process, monument and sediment, as shapes of the oasis landscape, acquire the so relevant role of synthesizing the spatial and temporal, individual and group trajectories. As Bourdieu says, “The mind born of the world of objects does not rise as a subjectivity confronting an objectivity: the objective universe is made up of objects which are product of objectifying operations

The outer domestic space is equally defining to the family unit, but it is related to visible activities that, in general, have to do with practices of production (Kent 1990a). This way, the demarcation of the domestic compounds through the construction of domestic infrastructures of production is the most evident sign of the social appropriation of nature -for that of productive that its practices might have as well as for that of exclusive its limits might have (Barceló 1988). As extensions of the house outside it, patios, agricultural fields, and irrigation canals regionalize the outer space qualifying it with the stamp of exclusion of the neighbouring families, even the related ones. The domestic unit is produced by the same mechanisms through which it produces. The village space, as bigger level of inclusion than the domestic one defined strictu sensu, defines co-presence contexts at a local scale. Since the domestic unit includes in its interior the germ of its denial -because it is only through its alliance with other units and the division that the nuclear family gets its reproduction-, the domestic 33

For example, Treherne has qualified the interpretation of European Bronze Age ‘ideology of prestige goods’ as intrinsically cynic, seeking to demonstrate that the changing treatment of the human body in funerary rituals and daily life is more than ideological: it is related to the development of a coherent lifestyle and, as such, it is fundamentally tied to the changing notions of personality and self-identity (Treherne 1995).

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THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OASIS it acquires its most relevant dimension34. It is there where practices are naturalized, remaining as representations at higher, more inclusive, and more de-contextualized scales. This way, each scale of practice is related to the other ones. House, domestic compound, village, and desert are related in the practices of domesticity. It could be said that the oasis is itself a representation of domesticity, though we would have to add that it is as well its practice. The material construction of the oasis, its monuments and sediments, represents the relationships between the domestic social groups and between each one of them and nature. At the same time, it is through the practice of the oasis, the dwelling of its monuments, and the production of its sediments, that the relationships between social relationships and the relationships with nature are created.

units’ autonomy and self-sufficiency are continuously levelled by the interaction at a higher scale (Bourdieu 1977). Thus, the time of the daily production that characterizes the domestic unit submits to a level in which it finds its own overcoming since it carries in its interior a whole of individual vital times and trajectories. The interaction at a supra-domestic level -that in the end is the one that allows domestic reproduction- is ruled by the cultural order that defines the groups and their identities -that is, by the order that is subjectively assumed as objective and through which genealogies delimit strategies of matrimony and, from there on, patrimonial ones. The oasis is defined, hence, by the village or the local group of interaction between domestic groups. The village space is more than the addition of domestic spaces because, the same as the smallest level of inclusion, it has spatially and temporally demarcated boundaries that exceed the mere domestic superposition. The different temporality of each social unit implies, at the same time, the different temporality of the different spaces. Identity groups of different levels of inclusion, as domestic units and kinship groups, construct their genealogy with different temporalities, and these are materially manifested in different ways, through monument and sediment (Isbell 1997).

Domestic relationships can be analyzed from a contextual perspective, but for understanding their role within the history of the oasis, strategies of de-contextualization of practices must be included. The rhetorical forms of the landscape, the strategies of the generative practices of monuments and sediments, point out precisely towards the description of the ways in which those practices are not only developed in economic-social-symbolic contexts but, as well, escape from them. This constitutes, finally, the main theoretical limitation of the contextual approach as well as the justification of the multiple-scale perspective35. If what we are trying to understand is how the domesticity of the oasis operated, not in a particular moment but throughout history, it is necessary to build a conceptual and methodological framework that allows appreciating the interstices of the contexts and their practices, there where these, those, and social relationships are naturalized36. This is what this Chapter has intended to do.

Finally, there is the scale of the landscape that is more external to the oasis, the one that surrounds it and defines it as an anomaly: the desert. It is not a desert that is unrelated to practices but, on the contrary, a desert that is furrowed by the roads that go through it from the oases. But, since cultural construction ends at the limits of the oasis, the archaeological visualization of the landscape gets blurred beyond those limits. Nevertheless, far away from being a homogeneous and uniform landscape, the desert is a wide space of roads that are demarcated by landmarks. These landmarks, whether they are natural shapes, cultural demarcations, or simply names of places, conform a spatial network without which getting through the desert would not be possible. The networks of landmarks, true cartographies of the experience, constitute, as the domestic and village landscapes of the oases, the system of generative dispositions of practices. At the same time, they are a system that is generated by practices, because they are an interconnected whole of experiences. The reproduction of this network, seen throughout a long period of time, is only comprehensible through a narrative support of the toponymycs which describes the landscape through its description and narration.

Synthesis of Chapter 3 If the mediation between individuals and their environment is in great part made by material culture, archaeology has a privileged perspective. Mainly, because such mediation happens through channels that, fixing actions spatially and temporally, underline the role of the generative practices of monuments and sediments in the conformation of the archaeological landscape. The oasis landscape, as representation and practice of social

34 A similar strategy, recently denominated ‘multi-situated ethnography’, has been suggested in ethnography (Marcus 1995). 35 A multiple-scale approach has been recently proposed within the contextual tradition (Hodder 1999), but without including a real theoretical justification of the proposal that, at last, implies juxtaposing the trifling scale of archaeological description of practice to long term and global space. 36 After all, if a code or a text actually existed in contexts of practices, if some coherence could be read through the contexts, how would we explain the reproduction of social relationships? If the agents had at least the idea of a textual coherence in the social practices in which they get involved; what would lead them to reproduce those situations, even more those in which they occupy disadvantaged positions?

The multiple-scale analysis does not reduce itself to the consideration of different spatial scales. On the contrary, since we are talking about exploring the practices through which structures and agency are related, it is in the interjections of spatial, temporal, and social scales where

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA relationships, is also representation and practice of relationships with the natural37. The oasis is a dimension of the space-time that can be characterized by certain contexts of co-presence and availability that also lead to the construction of the oasis as group of local interaction. The historic context of the oases conditioned their articulation with the macroregional space taking the social groups to two apparently antagonist strategies: to articulate and become more dependent on each other, and to define themselves as reproduction groups with autonomy pretensions. Both tendencies were part of the construction of the oasis that, defined as anomaly of the desert, combines the experience of the local with that of the global, the house, the village, and the journey. The analysis and interpretation of the oasis needs a methodology able to capture the depth of domestic relationships in space and time. To that extent, we have theoretically justified the multiple-scale approach. It could be said that this Chapter has gone through paths that, through social theory, cultural theory, and the theory of material culture, conduct towards the oasis. The previous Chapter, instead, had gone away from the Puna de Atacama through the paths of identity, interaction, and domestication. Even though it is probable that these new paths have returned to the same place of origin, the topography of the oasis shows a world of relationships and nuances that the one of the Puna de Atacama hid. To put it differently, by modifying the topoi of the Puna de Atacama, we have reconstructed the topography of the oasis. In the following chapters we will deal with the content of the oasis, introducing the archaeological data and its interpretation.

37 And, as it will be shown with the analysis of the ritual, the supernatural.

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Chapter 4

The Nature of the Oasis “... these dreary, broken lands are apparently unfit for permanent human settlement” (Francisco Pascasio Moreno, Notes on the Anthropogeography of Argentina). In Chapter 2 of this volume we have reconstructed a conceptual history of the involved geographic categories (Koselleck 1993). We have presented the Puna de Atacama as a construction that is historically related to the demarcation of the national states of the area. We have said nature had been characterized as homogeneously marginal, and that such imaginary, which had been incorporated to archaeology from other realm, was naturalized and reproduced in most archaeological interpretations. In Chapter 3, we have shown the theoretical paths through which the critical reconstruction of the archaeology of the Puna de Atacama conduces towards the oasis. Taking now care of the description of the environmental conditions could seem contradictory once we have questioned those interpretations of the historic process that give too much weight to social strategies of environmental adaptation, once we have related such weight to the naturalized image of the environment, and once we have showed the historic process through which such image was constructed and incorporated to archaeology. Nonetheless, pretending that long term historical processes do not relate to natural conditions would be useless rather than contradictory.

human occupations tend to behave, at least regarding their location, as if the people that used to inhabit those occupations had consciously taken the less expensive and more income-producing options. Thus, it is natural to believe past societies behaved as economic actors in a market. Opposing to this, at the same time, does not seem to leave any room for anything else than an irrational defence of irrationalism. Nonetheless, the sheen of efficiency that ecologist positions get is not given to them by the strength of the theory that underlies them but by a mess-up between the perspective of observation and the perspective of action. Archaeologists, the same as historians, look at their empiric materials retrospectively. Archaeologists, furthermore, need a retrospective perspective of a really long period of time. But the economically rational conducts assumed in economic action theory have not been able to share with the archaeologist the advantage of seeing themselves from the perspective the long temporal distance provides. Hence, nor the prognoses of the results of long term strategies -such as settling here or there, or starting the cultivation of this or that vegetable-, neither the economic and ecological diagnoses upon which such prognoses are founded, are comparable for both the perspective of action and the perspective of the archaeologist. This has been clearly established by those approaches to which the progression of time is a fundamental variable, whether they are evolutionists (Rindos 1984) or historicists (González 1992; Hodder 1987a; Tarragó 1984). Even though it is more likely that the results of actions come closer to the retrospectively made diagnosis in the long term, this does not imply this same diagnosis was at the bottom of the prognosis that took to those actions.

Far away from being naturally unconnected to societies, the environment is object of appropriation, modification, and, in some cases, division of the society through a whole set of dialogues between environmental structures and social actions. The description of the landscape we present in this Chapter does not intend to be objective because that would be contradictory to our purposes, but it does not intend to be a description from the subjective perspective of the historical actors either. Moreover, problems related to shortage of environmental and palaeo-environmental data for the area make the access to a detailed interpretation of the environmental structure rather difficult. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to delineate its main traits and hypothesize about possible detail variations.

All this is relevant to our discussion regarding the environment because this cannot be a ‘retrognosis’, that is, a retrospective diagnosis of the natural offers within which societies would have economically acted. Aschero has pointed towards a similar direction when underlining the relevance of two components: “the accumulated memory of the experience provided by technologyenvironment interaction”, and “a network of social relationships that gathers all the interactions with entities from near or far away spaces, and that is configured through a deep temporal trajectory” (Aschero 1994: 15). That is, diagnoses of particular situations must be elaborated from the retrospective pasts of such specific contexts and not from the current perspective of those pasts. Environmental offers have always been historically mediated by habitual dispositions: toponymycs, tales, myths, personal experiences, access rules commonly

The positions according to which the relationship between nature and society is comparable to a market situation as it was described by classic political economy -that is to say, the ones that believe objective laws of market can not only be transposed to pre-mercantilist societies1 but also to the relationship with nature, that is, those that translate economic reductionism into ecological reductionism- have acquired great popularity within archaeology. In the very long term, the remains of 1

As formalist anthropology would propose it.

51

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA accepted, and a bunch of pieces of practical knowledge through which the involved environment was historically inhabited (Aschero sums it up as “accumulated memory” or “MITA”, Aschero 1994). The relationship with the environment is not defined in terms of most profitable options but through a long dialogue between environment and society from where strategies -whether these are similar or different to the previous ones- actually emerge. In the long term, it is highly probable that the most visible strategies turn out to be those that, historically, have been more profitable, and, hence, that it seems people chose what was objectively convenient in the long term. But we also have to take into account that the environment has nothing of natural once it has been occupied by human societies. Even the flora composition of the puna steppe has been considered as a possible result of selective feeding behaviours of domesticated camelids (Baied and Wheeler 1993).

What characterizes the puna, however, is nor its aridity or mountainous topography, neither its centripetal hydrography -all features it shares with the neighbouring regions. It is, instead, its really high minimum heights. As a result of the considerable increase of the minimum height, the vertical variation of the Andean landscape, though this does not imply its complete disappearance, is considerably reduced. Puna is the Andean landscape that appears over 4,000 m asl, though this limit varies, among other factors, according to latitude (Raffino and Nielsen 1993; Troll 1980). Strictly speaking, puna is the Andean steppe of high, hard, and perennial grasses (Pulgar Vidal 1987). Many factors act on the distribution of this flora formation, but the most important is the lower limit of summer snow falls. It is in the puna stripe and in the immediately higher one (janca) where the highest levels of snow falls can be recorded, and grass shrubs are the ones that hold the snow that ultimately falls over the slopes of the puna. While one goes up in latitude, the lower line of snow falls goes down3. In the puna area of Catamarca, the lower limit of grass steppe associated with snow precipitations is between 3,800 and 4,000 m asl, depending on the degree and orientation of the slope4. The higher limit of puna flora, on the other hand, is given by the anaerobia that exists at heights over 4,800 to 5,000 m asl, and by the generally rockier lands, craggier slopes, and stronger winds of such heights5. The relevance of the puna stripe, nonetheless, can be only appreciated if we compare it to the immediately higher and lower stripes. The high-mountain stripe, janca according to Pulgar Vidal (1987), is one of much lesser productivity, not because of its rainfall levels, but for the other previously mentioned abiotic conditions. The lower stripe, suni or jalca (Pulgar Vidal 1987), gets, comparatively, a really lower amount of snow and rain falls -which in many cases is null. The vegetation is generally composed by xerophyte bushes and halophyte herbs. Geographical conditions can vary according to precipitation levels6. But, despite the variability presented in each one of the basins due to their minimum height and winds reception position, the suni stripe is much drier than the puna stripe, having, therefore, natural pastures that are comparatively much poorer in quantity and quality.

Nonetheless and as analytical instrument, it will be useful to consider the productive potentialities of the environment briefly. This will allow, initially, seeing that the geographic environment of our interest has nothing of homogeneous, but, also, that such diversity has been creatively used by the populations of the area when constructing the oases. We will first describe fodder potentialities, and secondly, agricultural potentialities. Afterwards, we will introduce the Antofalla landscape. Finally, we will present Tebenquiche Chico, our main case of study. The Environmental Structure A plurality of variables becomes inter-crossed so to produce a great range of environmental possibilities, but only some parts of such range are economically apt, that is to say, plausible of being economically exploited so to produce a return that is equal or greater than the investment of social resources. The puna region shares with some of the neighbouring regions some general features. A first feature is its aridity, that is, the water deficit. This is not an exclusive feature of the puna, because arid conditions extend to a vast region that, from northern Peru, occupies the whole coastal plain, from the Titicaca towards the south, and from the sea towards the plain. The entire Chilean Great North and almost all the Argentinean Northwest correspond to arid conditions except for the semiarid area and the yunga. A second feature is topography, which is really rough, with steep slopes and really prominent maximum heights. The general orographic orientation is north-south. Both features, aridity and topography, are combined so to produce closed -endorreic and arreic- basins in which surface drainage does not get to the sea2.

Below the suni stripe, the vegetation is formed by xerophyte bushes, with columnar cacti and tree-like shrubs that, while improving the conditions, allow the formation of the characteristic quechua forests (Pulgar Vidal 1987; Raffino and Nielsen 1993). The most decisive factor for the presence of this stripe in the Altiplano is height. This stripe can be only seen in those basins with floors under 3,000 m asl: in the endorreic 3

Finally, we can find a similar flora association at really lower heights in the Patagonia. 4 Instead, it is at 4,000 m asl in Peru. 5 Phenomenon recorded at 4,800 m asl in Peru. 6 This way, below 2,900 or 3,000 m asl, there are columnar cacti in the Atacama basin that do not reproduce in the eastern higher basins. But, instead, there are columnar cacti in the Laguna Blanca basin that, though higher, gets the humidity of the winds of the east.

2 This is not always this way. For example, the Loa and Copiapó rivers flow into the Pacific, and some rivers that begin in the puna, such as the San Juan Mayo, flow into the Atlantic.

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS

Figure 4.1: Puna landscape of Tebenquiche Chico or Antofallita mountain. The puna is the altitudinal stripe that appears approximately between 3,900 and 4,700 m asl and is characterized by a steppe of perennial grasses. It is one of the main wealths of the region because it has great potential as vicuña and llama fodder.

while the suni gets really little or none, whether it is snow or rain. The janca -or stripe of the snow-capped summitsconsequently appears with a lower charge of snows to the south of the Altiplano. Between the permanent snows and the upper limit of the puna, the charge of snow fluctuates according to the season. Other consequence of latitude is the greater seasonality, so differences between winter and summer are stronger to the south too. Even though rains fall in summer, there are strong snow falls in winter in the janca and the puna.

basin of Atacama, in the arreic basins of Fiambalá and Belén, in the Atlantic basin of Santa María-Calchaquí. But not in these basins but between them is where a huge territory with minimum heights of 3,000 m asl -thus, presenting suni, puna, and janca stripes- can be found. This territory is generically called ‘puna’. In her description of the circum-Puna environment, Tarragó considered the 3,000 m asl contour line as fundamental for the delimitation of the landscape (Tarragó 1984). Between the eastern and western quechua stripes, there is a distance that goes up to 300 km. That distance is occupied by the territory that, designated as Puna de Atacama and Puna de Jujuy, has been considered homogeneously marginal. Nonetheless, taking into account its natural relative diversity, we can find nuances in both components of this image: marginality and homogeneity.

The combination of all these variables of landscape distribution makes the territory highly diverse, though there might be wide spaces of little potential between spots of resource concentration. The puna is the altitudinal stripe characterized by a steppe of perennial grasses, which appears approximately between 3,900 and 4,700 m asl (Figure 4.17). Such steppe constitutes one of the main wealths of the region because of its high potential as camelid (vicuñas and llamas) fodder. Camelids act as energy transformers making the puna stripe a huge reserve of resources (Dollfus 1991). This wealth of the puna is especially related to the lower limit of most frequent snow falls. At the same time, this limit must be read as a line of abrupt decrease of the global (snow and rain) annual falls. Regrettably, the few meteorological stations in the region are in suni areas, so their records reflect the much poorer numbers of that stripe. There are no records that allow quantifying the

Generally speaking, the janca, puna, suni, and quechua characterization is valid for the southern latitudes of the Altiplano, but with a series of modifications regarding flora composition, precipitation levels, and environmental humidity (Raffino and Nielsen 1993). The geographical high-plain phenomenon that separates quechua stripes from one another characterizes the Andean Altiplano in general, from Vilcanota (or La Raya) to San Francisco. Towards the south, nevertheless, humidity progressively decreases. This factor stresses the general aridity but also stresses the differences between the two most important stripes of the Altiplano -suni and puna- (Winterhalder 1994), because, in the southern areas of the Andean Altiplano, it is the puna the one that gets most snow falls,

7 This one and the following are pictures of the author except other indication.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 4.2: The Andean Altiplano, with contour lines every 1,000 m. The location of Tebenquiche Chico in Antofalla salt lake is indicated.

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS

Figure 4.3: Snow accumulation on the western slope of Calalaste cordillera, over 4,000 m asl, during the month of March; seen from Tebenquiche Chico.

higher humidity of the puna. The levels of vegetal covering -besides personal records made throughout ten years of visits to the region (though qualitatively and not systematically) (Haber 1992a)- can nonetheless give an idea of such difference. The vegetal covering by surface unit is, globally, ten times higher in the puna (Haber 1992a). If we add the higher proportion of dry material in puna grasses when compared to suni flora, we will obtain an image that clearly establishes a significant qualification in relative terms8. This potentiality, however, would be dismissible if it was not for camelids, which turn the little (humanly) productive grasses of the puna into profitable energy (for humans).

very high mountains. In this area, thus, the suni stripe predominates, and between puna areas there can be a distance up to 100 km (Figure 4.2).The distribution of natural fodder resources, then, is far away from being homogeneous because the extension of the puna stripe varies with topography. Besides, and for the same reason that affects flora composition, puna and janca represent water-catchment areas. The largest quantity of water the region gets falls, generally as snow, over 3,900 m asl (Figure 4.3). This water, accumulated in snows and glaciers or directly drained through pourings or water springs, ends up flowing towards the short water courses by effect of the steep slopes. The stream of these courses is function of the size of the catchment basin, especially in those parts of the catchment basin that are over 3,900 m asl. But the filtration due to the very permeable substrates of the area and the additional lost due to vaporization also have an influence. Thus, and keeping constant all the other factors, the flow of a water course at a certain spot is direct function of the puna and janca surfaces in their respective catchment basins, and inverse function of the distance between the puna and janca stripes and the measuring spot.

The main fodder resource is found, then, in the puna stripe. The extension of grass steppes depends on the orographic topography, that is, on the more or less plateau-like nature of the mountains. Those ranges with really steep slopes include a smaller area between the limits of the puna stripe; instead, the orographic formations with softer slopes -in the lower and higher limits of the puna- present larger extensions of grass steppes. For example, the great orographic formation centred in Galán mountain, which goes from the mountains of Toconquis to the Calchaquí summits, includes a huge extension of puna stripe. The same can be said about Sierra Calalaste, which, north to south, goes from El Rincón mountain, at the limit between Salta, Jujuy and Chile, to Peinado volcano, close to the San Buenaventura range, in the boundary between Antofagasta de la Sierra and Tinogasta, in Catamarca, forming a really long corridor of high summits that, at both sides, presents puna stripes. Towards the west, the massif formed by the mountains of Antofalla or Tebenquiche, Volcán or Antofalla volcano, and the Archibarca range, presents a wide and wrecked area where the puna stripe also predominates. Instead, from the basin of Antofagasta de la Sierra towards the south, up to the San Buenaventura range, a huge plain between 3,000 and 3,300 m asl extends only interrupted by not

The suni presents, naturally, a flora composition that is less apt as natural pastures (Figure 4.4). Its vegetation is comparatively much poorer (Dollfus 1991). It has, nonetheless, a great advantage: its lower height makes it potentially apt for agriculture. Since the prediction of rains or snows in the suni, already usually insufficient, is little reliable, agriculture depends on artificial irrigation. Thus, the great potentiality of the suni is mediated by the material conditionings of irrigation, and this is true both for food cultivation as well as for the extension of fodder resources through flooding. That is why the suni is entirely dependent on the puna; it gets its water subside from it. The volume of this subside will be, as we have previously said, dependent on the extension and the distance of the puna stripe within the same basin.

8 It is likely that we will count on systematic climatic information for different altitudinal stripes in the future, with which, therefore, we will be able to confront this somewhat impressionist image.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 4.4: Suni landscape from Tebenquiche Chico valley. Notice the little vegetal covering.

get less sunlight, but they offer comparatively smaller cultivation surfaces. Towards the centre of the range, relatively small valleys of soft slopes might offer, instead, a commitment between quality and quantity, with cultivation lands of limited extension but relatively protected.

But there are other factors that affect the distribution and use of irrigation water besides its volume. Among them, the degree of permeability of the land is a very significant factor. Very permeable substrates may considerably reduce the irrigation flow, but, at the same time, canals of little slope have more filtration. Hence, the excessively flat lands of the bottoms of the basins, which usually have, since they are deposition basins, lower gradients and sandier substrates, are less apt than the regular-sloped lands of the intermediate parts of the basins. There, the slopes increase the speed of the flow, which, together with the more abundant boulders and bigger stones, diminishes the filtration levels. Instead, the really steep slopes and rocky lands of the upper parts of the basins or particularly narrow valleys increase the speed of the flow to levels that, being difficult to control, diminish the efficiency of the irrigation system due to excessive erosion. Irrigation systems must look for speeds of flow within certain limits, because very quick flows activate erosion, and very slow flows allow accumulation. Thus, when evaluating agricultural potential, local topography is a factor of great importance and we should not only take into account the raw volume of water.

The combination of all these factors makes really difficult to find two spots with identical agricultural potential. Height and topography impose conditions that must be evaluated together. This way, it is the specific combination of particular topographic conditions what constitutes spaces with more or less potential for agricultural development (Winterhalder 1994). That is why general evaluations to a regional scale (Puna de Atacama) or even at big hydrographical basins (Antofalla basin, Antofagasta basin, etc.) do not show the internal variations that are of great relevance for understanding the potentialities for the construction of oases (Olivera 1989; Raffino 1975). Even though evaluations at hydrographical basins are useful for analyzing the water catchment capability of draining networks, these do not necessarily coincide with the scales that materially defined local social interactions9. Instead, and while intending an

Topography, at the same time, imposes other variations. Among them, we can mention the quantity of sunlight (daily and annual), the exposition to winds and frosts, and the extension of surface that can be levelled so to be put under irrigation. Very plain and open lands are more exposed to sunlight, winds, and frosts, but they offer large surfaces that can be irrigated. Very narrow and deep valleys offer great protection against winds and frosts and

9

For example Olivera, in a first record of the archaeology of the Southern Puna, establishes a framework for the analysis of hydrographical basins, though he points out that “it is the more favourable environments of the basins and protected valleys where the resources for human life acquire greater relevance” (Olivera 1989: 8).

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS

Figure 4.5: Marsh landscape from Tebenquiche Chico valley.

approximation to an archaeology of the oasis, the marshes (vegas) of more reduced and delimited scale become more useful10.

their permeability, and consolidating the canals’ margins. Topography affects marshes because it determines their potential extension. This way, really encased marshes are not plausible of being extended, while marshes located on plains can be extended depending on the water flow.

Differently from the puna or suni stripes, marshes are not extensively located according to altitudinal stripes but along surface or sub-surface water courses (Figure 4.5). The flora resource of marshes can be used as fodder; though of smaller volume (in dry material) than puna fodder, it has greater taste for camelids. Nonetheless, the main resource of marshes is its association to water courses. Such association is what explains why camelids and human groups have fixed their territories taking marshes as axis.

The landscape of the region is, then, determined by a combination of different factors. Some of them can be summed up around the variables ‘extension of the puna area’ and ‘topography of suni valleys with permanent waters’. The extension of the puna area affects the fodder potential for raising wild or domestic camelids. The distance between puna areas and spots of settlement can be relevant when evaluating the costs of hunting strategies. In such cases, maybe the ethnographic observations according to which the distances between the main houses and the herding posts reach up to 50 km (taking cargo mules and donkeys into account) can be appropriate. Anyhow, the quantification of fodder potential is not limited to the division of hydrographical basins. The accessibility to these puna resources could have depended more on the political contexts that had some influence upon them than on direct ecological factors (Giddens 1984). Nonetheless, some natural variables do have a material effect on the access paths, the general distribution, and the changes throughout time.

Settlement is not the only factor that might transform marshes. The irrigation of the lands that are at the sides of marshes increases the fodder offer of the basin by producing more vegetal covering, as it happens in the basin of Antofagasta and in the lower parts of Antofalla’s campo. Subsequently, marshes entail an important service to irrigation systems. Irrigation canals get ‘champeados’, that is, interiorly covered with loafs of grass that were taken from marshes, so that these last ones’ herbs colonize their river-beds, considerably diminishing, thus, 10 Even currently, hydrographical basins do not delimit local interaction contexts, because villages are located beside specific marshes while the heap of posts and estancias directly exploited from each village exceeds the limits of the corresponding basin. For example, marshes of the basins of Diamante lagoon and Antofalla are exploited by the village of Antofagasta, marshes of the basins of Archibarca, El Fraile, and Antofagasta, are exploited by Antofalla.

Summing up and considering the Altiplano within the regional geographical context, it is a mistake to believe they are characterized by a homogeneous poverty or marginality. First of all, we are dealing with a landscape that is far away from being homogeneous. Three 57

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA well as for functioning), it is presumable that better efficiency conditions will be reached at smaller scales. The systems of levelling in slopes and those of construction of canals on plains must have been more labour-consuming, and their efficiency must have been only reached in contexts of larger scale labour mobilization. Maybe that explains why, in the long term record of the oases, irrigation systems have tended to take advantage of the conditions in which an efficient management at a small scale was possible or, if not, they did not develop at all. (d) The topographic context of agricultural fields, which affects the existence of topographic conditions that will be more or less protecting of the cultivation. The quantity of hours of sunlight and the influence of winds and frosts are directly determined by the presence of mountains delimiting the valleys and by their general orientation.

significant landscapes -janca, puna, and suni- are irregularly distributed in the space. Among them, the puna landscape, approximately between 3,900 and 4,800 m asl, presents the greatest natural productivity. The puna and the suni are transversally crossed by marshes, which are usually related to permanent surface water courses. It was next to suni marshes, approximately between 3,000 and 3,900 m asl, that oases were built through the creation of an agricultural landscape. However, not all suni marshes present natural conditions that lead to a same agricultural potential. Agriculture at suni marshes has had to have irrigation. Thus, four are the main factors that affect the agricultural potentiality of suni marshes: (a) The minimum height of the marsh or the bottom of the basin if it is possible to transport irrigation water at heights below the end of the marsh: the lower the height of the end of the marsh or the bottom of the basin, the higher the diversity of possible cultivation allowing the inclusion of other less resistant to height species or varieties-, and the higher the quantity of land under cultivation, because, assuming the higher limit of cultivation fixed at 3,900 m asl, the space up to it will be bigger. (b) The size of the water catchment area of the particular marsh (not the size of the hydrographical basin of first order, Strahler 1984), and, above all, the surface of drainage above 3,900 m asl. It is not worthwhile considering, for example, the whole size of a hydrographical basin -as the Antofalla salt lake-, because it is in the basins of second order -the valleys that come down to the salt lake- where irrigation systems are developed. (c) The topography of the lands that surround the marshes, whose size and gradient influence the expansion potential and the efficiency of the management of the irrigation system (Clement and Moseley 1991; Ortloff 1993; Ortloff and Kolata 1989). The larger the surfaces that are plausible of being levelled, the larger the expansion potential. The efficiency of the management is influenced by the permeability of the substrate and the gradient of the canals. The transportation of the fluid is more efficient on ‘hard’ (clayey and stony) soils transversally inclined respect the direction of the fluids because, that way, the irrigation system can regulate the canal’s gradient (which is parallel to the direction of the flow). The transportation of water is simpler through a canal on a slope than through a canal on a plain. At the same time, irrigation (assuming it is made through plot flooding as all the bibliography specialized in Andean traditional agriculture states) is more efficient in lands with little or no inclination because sloped plots have to be levelled. Therefore, it is simpler to level plots on plains than on slopes. Even though both requirements are apparently contradictory, we have to keep in mind that we are talking about two moments of a same sequence: transportation and irrigation. Thus, the construction and management of irrigation systems is more efficient when transportation tends to be done on slopes, and irrigation on plains. In low-cost management systems such as the ones we should expect between social groups of reduced labour mobilization (for construction and maintenance as

Hence, even though the natural fodder potential of the region varies according to the regional distribution of the puna stripe, the agricultural potential is even much more heterogeneous because it not only depends on the quantity of suni marshes but on the qualification that results from the combination of the four mentioned factors too. Looking at it from the perspective of agricultural potential, it is really difficult to find two identical marshes, because, besides those of more general influence, it depends on strictly local conditions. Regrettably, there are not palaeo-environmental local studies that allow estimating with a certain degree of certainty the validity of the current observations on the environment if applied to past conditions. According to investigations made by specialists in relatively nearby areas, conditions quite similar to the current ones would have been reached much time before 2,000 B.P. (Baied and Wheeler 1993; Dollfus 1991; Fernández et al. 1991; Grosjean and Núñez 1994; Lynch 1990; Markgraf 1985; Núñez and Grosjean 1994; Núñez et al. 1995-1996; Núñez and Santoro 1988; Yacobaccio 1990). The last two millennia do not seem to have produced mayor evidences of sudden climatic changes, and there are no evidences of tendencies of general climatic change either. Nonetheless, it cannot be simply assumed that the absence of evidences of climatic change corresponds to a long ‘freezing’ of the environmental conditions. From the study of the annual accumulations in ice cores in Quelccaya and Huascarán, respectively in the southern and northern Peruvian sierras, it could be established that the last 1,500 years have been characterized by a set of climatic oscillations in the Andes (Shimada et al. 1991; Thompson et al. 1994). Evidence of dry periods from 540 A.D. to 610 A.D., 650 A.D. to 730 A.D., 1040 A.D. to 1490 A.D., and 1720 A.D. to 1860 A.D., and of humid periods from 760 A.D. to 1040 A.D. and 1500 A.D. to 1740 A.D., have been offered (Thompson et al. 1994: 84 and figure 3). Archaeological data from the north coast of Peru during both severe ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) episodes, approximately between 500 ± 200 A.D. and 1100 ± 100 A.D., have also been reported (Thompson et 58

THE NATURE OF THE OASIS al. 1994: 94). Taking into account the fact that under similar conditions of atmospheric and maritime circulation the current ENSO episodes provoke strong rainfalls in coastal areas and severe droughts on altiplano areas, both records can be correlated (Shimada et al. 1994: Thompson et al. 1984). Of course that the applicability of these records to the climatic conditions of the southern end of the Andean Altiplano is something that still needs to be examined. Nonetheless, everything seems to indicate that, far away from representing local episodes, climatic oscillations, including a progressive warming during the last few years, have a general global application in the Andes (Handler and Andsager 1994) even when they influence the diverse areas differently. Still, having in mind the high sensitivity of Andean agriculture of height, the repercussion of climatic oscillations, even the soft ones, on productivity are to be considered (Cardich 1980; Dollfus 1991).

Tebenquiche Grande, Tebenquiche Chico, Toro, Lervidero, and Antofallita -all tributaries of the Antofalla salt lake basin- and the marshes of Agua Negra and Chascha -tributaries of the Arizaro salt lake basin- are born. A southern structure is formed by the Volcán or Antofalla volcano, one of the highest mountains of the region with 6,409 m asl, and the Conito Antofalla (5,503 m asl), Onas (4,719 m asl), Bayo (5,107 m asl), Negro, Onas (5,732 m asl), Ojo Antofalla (5,761 m asl), Patos, Lila (5,757 m asl), Cajeros (5,725 m asl), La Botijuela, and La Aguada mountains. From this massif, the marshes of Onas, Las Cuevas, Las Minas, and Botijuela come down towards the east; to the south, those of Cadillo Grande and Las Quinoas -both of them and all the previous ones tributaries of the Antofalla salt lake basin-, and those of Cajeros, Potrero Grande, Potrerillo, and Las Chacras – tributaries of the El Fraile salt lake basin-; to the west, the marsh of Patos, tributary of the Patos lagoon; and to the north, the marshes of Laguna Verde, tributaries of the Archibarca salt lake basin.

Therefore, even without having local palaeoenvironmental records that span over the period under study, studies at regional and Andean scales seem to indicate that, in the last two millennia, the weather has oscillated around the current parameters. These oscillations, by increasing or diminishing the rainfall levels in the water catchment basins of the irrigation systems or improving or making worse the sunlight or rainfall conditions among other things, could have implied serious consequences for the local agricultural potential. It is also probable, though it still needs to be examined, that the oscillations that were recorded for the southern Peruvian sierra and considered valid for the northern Altiplano by the authors can be correlated with oscillations in the southern Altiplano (Thompson et al. 1994). At the same time, it is presumable that climatic oscillations did not have the same consequences in all the suni marshes. The particular conditions of each one of them might have increased or diminished tendencies of different magnitude in nearby valleys. To this extent, it will be of use to introduce a brief description of the marshes of Antofalla and to analyze their potential and eventual condition for the creation of oases.

Of all of them, the marshes that are tributaries of the Antofalla salt lake are the ones that reach lower heights. This salt lake, with 3,350 m asl (IGM 1990) or even less according to recent topographic surveys made by request of mining companies (which give the Antofalla salt lake an altitude of 3,100 m asl), is lower than the bottoms of the Archibarca (4,050 m asl) and Arizaro (3,476 m asl) basins. Thus, the marshes that descend towards the Antofalla salt lake forming wide fans of material accumulations over it present, comparatively, the best agricultural conditions. The marshes of Antofalla, then, are those that descend from Antofalla mountain (Figure 4.7), also called Tebenquiche. With south direction, the waters drain through the valleys of Antofalla, Tebenquiche Grande, and Tebenquiche Chico. The course of Antofalla valley longer, narrower, and more irregularly shaped than the other two- goes, towards the east, through two ‘narrows’ so to flow, afterwards and with southeast direction, into the salt lake where it forms a wide fan (Antofalla’s ‘campo’). The water course is born in the water spring of Antofalla, at 4,150 m asl, and after approximately 15.2 km, it fans forming a cone of 1 km long. At the bottom of the valley, beside its western slope and next to the beginning of the fan, the little current settlement of Antofalla is to be found. With a population of about 40 people, it concentrates almost the entire population of the western half of the department of Antofagasta de la Sierra (that is, from Calalaste cordillera to the west) (Figures 4.8 and 4.9).

The Antofalla Area The Antofalla area is formed by a massif orography of general orientation southwest-northeast that serves as western limit for the long and narrow basin of the Antofalla salt lake (Figure 4.6). A northern structure that is located around Antofalla mountain (also Tebenquiche Grande or Tebenquicho)11 reaches a maximum height of 5,837 m asl. The most important mountains of this massif are Tebenquiche Grande, Tebenquiche Chico, Toro, Chascha, and Bola. The highest mountains, Tebenquiche Grande and Chico, have permanent snows on their summits. There, and in the water springs located between 4,200 and 5,000 m asl, is where the water courses that form, at lower heights, the marshes of Antofalla, 11

Tebenquiche Grande valley, located to the north of the previous one, is born in heights at about 5,200 m asl and flows, after about 15.2 km and after having travelled in south direction in its upper part and in southeast direction in its middle part, into a really wide fan (4.4 km long)

Actually a volcano (Kraemer et al. 1998).

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Figure 4.6: Antofalla area. The Antofalla salt lake can be seen in the middle; to its right, Calalaste cordillera; to its left, Antofalla sierra. This last one is formed by the Antofalla stratovolcano to the north, and the Volcán to the south. It is from these mountains from where the valleys that flow into the salt lake come down.

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS Figure 4.7: Picture of the valleys that come down from Antofalla or Tebenquiche mountain. South to north: Antofalla, Tebenquiche Grande, and Tebenquiche Chico. Seen from the slope of Calalaste cordillera, westwards. The Antofalla salt lake can be seen in the foreground. Northwards, not included in the picture, there is Antofallita valley.

Figure 4.8: Antofalla valley. Above, Antofalla valley seen waters up, westwards, from the marsh at the bottom of the valley. In the background, Antofalla or Tebenquiche mountain. Below, Antofalla valley seen waters down, eastwards, from the left slope. In the middle, the current village of Antofalla. In the background, the Antofalla salt lake and Calalaste cordillera.

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Figure 4.9: Antofalla’s campo. Wide fan that opens towards the salt lake (in the foreground). Antofalla oasis can be seen in the middle of the picture.

Figure 4.10: Tebenquiche Grande valley. Above, Antofalla or Tebenquiche mountain. In the foreground, the Antofalla salt lake.

fan12. It has an approximate length of 7.8 km and two little outposts, one in use and the other abandoned (Figure 4.11).

that opens over the salt lake. This valley is considerably wide when compared to the other ones of this region. In its lower section it has a house, currently used as outpost, that belongs to a local family (Figure 4.10).

On its side, Antofallita valley, which is born in Toro mountain and has an east orientation, has a total length of

Tebenquiche Chico valley, even northern than the previous, is born in a group of water springs at 4,900 m asl and, with southeast direction, flows into a wide fan of 3 km long that is coalescent to Tebenquiche Grande’s

12 Both valleys, to which one can get by the same ‘campo’, are called ‘el Teben’ by Antofalla people.

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Figure 4.11: Tebenquiche Chico valley. (a) Picture taken from the western slope of the valley by Weisser in 1923. The archaeological structures can be seen. (b) Picture of Tebenquiche Chico valley.

Figure 4.12: Picture of Antofallita valley taken from the right slope. In the foreground, the current oasis can be seen in the middle of the picture. To the left the marsh. To the right and above, the Antofalla salt lake and Calalaste cordillera.

water through the slopes in order to reach optimal gradients (considering optimal 4º; Ortloff 1989). Tebenquiche Grande and Tebenquiche Chico valleys have greater flexibility when it comes to transport opportunities. Besides, given their greater altitudinal gradients, the water courses have undermined their bottoms, forming, towards the river, terraces of abrupt slopes. This adds another set of possibilities for water transportation, not because of the sandy slopes of the valley any longer, but thanks to the stony ravines of the water course.

12 km before flowing into the salt lake. It is relatively narrow and contains two houses currently inhabited by families in its interior (Figure 4.12). Finally, Las Minas valley is formed by two water courses that go down towards the east of the Volcán, converging at the beginning of the campo. The southern valley -Las Minas valley strictly speaking- has a length of 11.7 km. The campo that is formed by the convergence of this valley and the valley of Tarón, a little bit more to the north, is one of the widest campos of the Antofalla basin, reaching almost 7 km long (Figure 4.13 and 4.14).

At Antofalla, Antofallita, and Las Minas valleys, the water transportation must be done through the sides of the valley. This limits the possible locations for agricultural fields to the same sides or the valley bottom. Instead, at Tebenquiche Grande and Tebenquiche Chico, the transportation of water can be done through the ravines of

The gradient of the water course of the marsh is, at last, highly variable according to the topographic conditions of each valley. This decisively influences the efficiency of the management of the irrigation systems. For example, the little inclined Antofalla valley forces to transport 63

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Figure 4.13: Las Minas valley seen from the southern slope, at the height of the second narrow. In the background, the Antofalla salt lake.

the river; that is why agricultural fields can be placed over the stream-terraces at the bottom of the valley and not necessarily at the bottom of the slopes. In this last case, the resulting pattern is one of centrifugal kind, that is, transportation through the centre of the valley and irrigation towards the sides. Instead, the centripetal pattern of the valleys of lower gradient reduces the possibilities of reaching greater efficiency in the transportation and limits the extension of the plots that can be cultivated to the parts by the sides. In Las Minas valley, since it is a really narrow and elevated valley, this implies the impossibility of cultivation. In Antofalla and Antofallita, the lands under cultivation are preferentially located in the upper and middle parts of the fan, because it is there where topography allows extending the fields under irrigation. This more restricted location of the agricultural fields reduces the variation of possible cultivations and increases the sunlight hours and the exposition to frosts and storms, because fans are more exposed than valleys. At Tebenquiche Grande, even though agriculture is possible inside the valley, its breadth offers little topographic protection. At Tebenquiche Chico, instead, agriculture finds certain greater protection thanks to its sides.

Figure 4.14: LANDSAT image of the northern half of the Antofalla salt lake. The valleys that come down from Antofalla sierra towards the east, forming wide fans over the salt lake, can be seen here. (Courtesy of the Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales).

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS Introduction to Tebenquiche Chico Although evidences of archaeological settlement have been found in all these valleys and even though there are settlements that can be dated to the period under study in all of them -except for Las Minas valley-, it is in Tebenquiche Chico where the oasis landscape can be more clearly seen. Besides, the current occupation of this valley is so little that it has allowed a great visibility of the archaeological remains of the oasis. The archaeological data of the oasis that was found in Antofalla, Tebenquiche Grande, and Antofallita valleys will be commented in Chapter 8. We will come back to the valleys of Antofalla and Las Minas so to introduce the landscapes that have existed after and before the oasis. In the following Chapters we will take the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico as the case of study, for it is the most visible, better conserved, and clearer example of this type of landscape. Because of this, and before finishing this presentation of the environmental conditions, we will present an introduction to the valley of Tebenquiche Chico. With this purpose, we will follow Weisser and Volters’, Krapovickas’, and Barrionuevo’s texts and illustrations. In the 1920’s, as part of the first expeditions sponsored by the antiquarian Muniz Barreto, Weisser and Volters went through the Puna de Atacama reaching, in their second expedition in 1923 and for the first and only time, the Antofalla area (Figure 4.15) (Haber 2000). They quickly visited the valleys of Antofalla and Tebenquiche Chico. At Antofalla, they visited an archaeological site and excavated two tombs, one with two children and the other one with seven bodies that, according to Weisser, had been re-deposited there by previous tombs excavators. At Tebenquiche Chico, where they did not spend more than a day (from March 21st to March 22nd, 1923), they excavated two tombs and draw a sketch of the valley with the location of the sites (Figures 4.16 and 4.17). They wrote in their field notebook: “After two hours of searching on a field absolutely mined by ocultos (Ctenomys sp.), I decided to go inside the little valley of Tebenquiche Chico, where there currently is an uninhabited little corral, and we stayed there for the night. The marsh is limited to a stripe of just 5 m near a water course with abundant and really cold water. A simple walk through the valley indicates that at about 500 steps waters up the river there are houses and not very abundant cultivations at both sides. Open Santa María type trojas, nice stone walls made of big stone slabs and well covered by big slate slabs were so visible since their caps almost came out to the surface- that they had to call the attention of the current inhabitants of the area. And that is how I found eight open trojas. But in the eastern slope of the water course, I saw some stone slabs that belonged to a fallen troja that came outside the earth. I make this troja to be opened (sketch). It was a sepulchre of an adult, with 11 finds around the skeleton. A big jar with no drawings was useless, broken by the fall

Figure 4.15: Sketch of the Antofalla salt lake (refitted) according to Muniz Barreto’s second expedition field notes (La Plata Museum Collection).

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Figure 4.16: Sketch of Tebenquiche Chico according to Muniz Barreto’s second expedition field notes (La Plata Museum Collection).

Figure 4.17: Picture of Tebenquiche Chico taken in 1923 by Muniz Barreto’s expedition. “Vist. Panorámica (4/1) hacia el Norte por sobre la quebr. Tebenquicho Chico” can be read in the border of the negative. La Plata Museum Collection.

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS “This little valley has a general direction NNW-SSE and flows into the Antofalla Salt lake. In its upper section, some valleys unite to it, feeding a water course that goes against the mountains that form its right wall. The total length of the [lower section of the] valley is of about one kilometre and a half, and its width is of about 500 meter, in its middle part, where the archaeological site is. As the water course gets plied against the right, it leaves on the left a wide plain that goes up to the bottom of the mountains that form the other wall of the valley. The water course goes down to the Salt lake in soft unevenness, though its waters disappear before getting to the salty bed. The little water flow moves through the bottom of a ditch that, in front of the ruins, has a width of 15 meters and whose almost vertical walls have a height of 3 meters. In the lower half of its flow, the water course describes a turn towards the centre of the valley and it separates itself from the slope that limits it through the right, but, 200 meters below, through another turn, it plies again against the named border. In this path, it leaves a little surface of 50 meters wide and 200 meters long free, framed by the mountains.” “The native population rises at both sides of the little river. At one side, it occupies the little plain on the right, and at the other side, a stripe of elongated land that has 200 meters long and [sic] 40 meters wide” (Krapovickas 1955: 11). Krapovickas described the ruins the following way: “The constructions are divided in two types: ruins of round houses and agricultural terraces. The rooms form groups of two or three round houses dispersed through the area that is covered with ruins, preferentially on the margins of the water course. Here, some buildings look like big towers. Their well built stone walls reach up to 1.50 meters high. At some places, doors with plain stone [sic] lintels can be identified. Among the agricultural fields, there are longitudinal ones, some of them escalated over the mountains that limit through the SSW where they rise up to considerable height, and others on the margins of the ditch through where the waters run. The agricultural fields were fed by canals that, following the path of the water course, continued to the top. Other construction category is remarkable; formed by square rooms that cover the entire ruined surface. They are squares of ten meters per side, limited by very low stone walls that hardly come out the land’s surface and that start escalating towards the mouth of the water course while the level of the land starts descending. We do not know the use of these constructions, but they are probably stubbles” (Krapovickas 1955: 11-12).

Figure 4.18: Sketch of Tebenquiche Chico published by Krapovickas (1955).

of a big stone of the cap. A lot of pieces were missing too, and that is why I do not carry it with me. The skeleton itself was so rotten that it was useless. What called my attention was a pipe that was found on a little bowl. The pipe was placed face up. In its interior, it had a cap of a little black slab and underneath, two pieces of charcoal. In the evening, there was a cold and really strong wind from the North” (Weisser 1923, in Haber 2000). After this, we can read: “Tebenquiche Grande and Tebenquiche Chico are worth, in my opinion, a more tidy study. Though all the visible trojas have been already violated, I do not doubt that in a tidier examination we will find 10 or 12 non violated trojas. The finds in the first troja I dug make a deeper exploration desirable” (Weisser 1923, in Haber 2000).

The field notes of Barrionuevo, who was a dentist from Catamarca that liked archaeology and mountaineering and was acknowledged as pioneer and promoter of both activities in the local medium, was published by his wife and is another example of journey account that introduces us into our archaeological oasis: “Today we’ve departed

On his side, Krapovickas left the following report of the journey he made three decades later (Figure 4.18):

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Figure 4.19: Sketch of Tebenquiche Chico by R. Mazzolini according to Barrionuevo’s expedition (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978).

rooms and are placed in the interior of agricultural plots. The mountain slope that is on the left side of the river presents agricultural terraces. Some of the rooms that were dug show a height of 1.60 meters” (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978: 7).

to Tebenquiche with the purpose of carrying a study on that significant site” (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978: 7). Barrionuevo described Tebenquiche valley the following way (Figure 4.19): “The site of Tebenquiche is basically constituted by two habitational clusters that are located over the streamterraces of the river, both at its right and left margins. The rooms are distributed forming actual independent circular units, made of stone walls that have entrance doors of about 40 cm of light and whose thickness is of around 50 cm. In some cases, these circles have two

Synthesis of Chapter 4 In this Chapter we have shown that the nature of the oasis is characterized by the heterogeneity of the environment. The environment has nothing of homogeneous from the point of view of its available natural resources, and it is

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THE NATURE OF THE OASIS even less homogeneous if we consider the marshes that are plausible of being transformed into agricultural oases. The oases have followed, in their location, an agricultural ‘logic’. The geographical relationship with puna stripes, higher than the agricultural location of oases, has been, undoubtedly, one of great relevance for the qualification of suni marshes throughout the history of oases. It is in the lands of puna where most and the most stable natural wealths of the inhabitants of the oases were concentrated. Nevertheless, oases have been constructed around agricultural practice and its material conditionings. This agricultural practice of construction of oases has had a really defined domestic organization. It is on the domestic realm that forms the oases where we focus our attention in the next Chapter.

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Chapter 5

The Domestic Scale of the Oasis “In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, or authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain. From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia’s refugees look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing. They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away. Thus, when travelling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.” (Italo Calvino, The invisible cities)

Figure 5.1: Picture of one of the areas of greater concentration of archaeological structures of Tebenquiche Chico. Taken from the western slope.

daily reproduction of the domestic units,1 To that extent, we present an interpretation of the complex stratigraphy of our detailed case, TC1. Through the analysis of architecture, building deposits, and spatial disposition, we show in which ways it is possible to understand the monumentalization and ritualization of the construction of the house. The description of a series of other deposits that, underneath the occupation surfaces or in the walls and roofs, are related, though not exclusively to the construction of the house, to the household in it, is introduced as well. It is in this Chapter where a

In Chapter 4 we have interpreted the natural conditions of the environment. The non-homogeneous nature of the economic potential of the region was emphasized, stressing the variable features of the potential oases in time and space. In this Chapter, we will show how apt environments for potential oases were constructed as oases through the practice and representation of domesticity. Then, the focus of this Chapter is the social and cultural language of the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico. In order to understand the role of cellular domestic units in the construction of the oasis, the definition and description of each one of them will be introduced first, for it is through their settlement and growth that the oasis as a whole was built. In the second part of this Chapter, we will present the ways in which residential cores -that is, the inner spaces of greater extra-domestic social exclusion- constituted at the same time the arena for the

1 The domestic unit has revealed itself, as medium for acceding to the social groups through their architecture and spatial organization, as a relevant category in archaeology (Flannery and Winter 1976; Kent 1990b and the works contained in it). The need of an approach oriented towards practice has been recently emphasised with the purpose of adding up to the understanding of social processes (Hedon 1996).

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS description and a definition of the domestic scale are presented.

Better than an oasis, Tebenquiche Chico valley has in its interior the ruins of a group of many little oases. With this we are trying to say that, if seen at a domestic scale which in the end is the most visible scale-, there is not a unique structural unity. The archaeology of Tebenquiche is mainly a domestic archaeology. And it is through the more or less continuous disposition of domestic spaces that it is possible to talk about spatial unity.

The Domestic Cells A first look to the archaeological architectural structures of the valley of Tebenquiche Chico immediately promotes a feeling of continuity in the evidences, but this continuity is not defined by the boundaries of a village or sole settlement (Figure 5.1). The progressive occupation and reoccupation of domestic units of residence and production has accumulated little units in such a way that, in the part of the valley of greater architectural density, they present a continuity of archaeological structures.

Thirteen domestic compounds were analyzed and defined in the surveyed sector, which is the one of greater occupation density in Tebenquiche Chico valley, (Figure 5.3). The description of TC1, TC2, TC7, TC26, TC27, TC28, TC29, TC30, TC31, TC32, TC33, TC34 and TC35, all of them fully detailed in the map, will be included; such description will follow this order: domestic compounds located in the eastern terrace (left margin of the river), down (south) to up (north) -TC7, TC1, TC26, TC27, TC2, TC28, and TC29-, and domestic compounds located in the western terrace (right margin of the river), down (south) to up (north) -TC35, TC34, TC33, TC32, TC31, and TC30.

Through careful observation and survey,2 a detailed archaeological map was prepared (Figure 5.2). Since the irregular topography of the valley makes it quite difficult to carry the interpretation directly on the field,3 the cartographic analysis has been of great relevance because it provided a very complete set of data.

A domestic compound is defined as the space that is occupied by a set of architectural units: the compound is integrated by a compact residential core of rooms and patios generally joined by agricultural structures (agricultural and/or stream-terraces). At the same time, this close relationship between rooms, patios, and streamterraces includes the canals that, in each case, provided water for the irrigation of the cultivations. In many cases, though not in all of them, the path of the irrigation canals can be followed in the map from their water intake at the river -or from the river’s ravine if the upper parts of the canals have been destroyed-, to their entrance in the agricultural fields. It can be verified, thus, that each group of agricultural fields previously related to a same compact residential core was provided with water by one or two irrigation canals, and that these were independent from those that fed the fields that belonged to neighbouring units. Each irrigation canal goes down from the river, through the ravine, to the stream-terrace where the domestic compounds and their fields are located, remaining then related to the domestic compound to whose agricultural fields it provides with irrigation water. It seems logic to think, thus, that the members of the social units that inhabited the households of the compact core cultivated those fields that were located around it and, with that purpose, managed the irrigation water using the corresponding canals.

2 The survey of Tebenquiche Chico’s architectural structures was one of the tasks to which we dedicated great effort. After a first general recognition visit on December 1989 -with the participation of Silvina Ahumada, UNCa student, and Antonio Ramos-, in November/December 1990, a complete intensive survey (one person for each 25 m) of the lower part of the valley (surveying from the western side of the valley up to the first narrow), where the greatest density of archaeological occupations is concentrated, was made. About 100 ha were surveyed, walking transversally to the orientation of the water course, from one slope of the valley to the other, with the participation of Aldo Alonso, Guillermo de la Fuente, Juan A. Ferreyra, and Marta Inés Jiménez, UNCa students. This allowed the detection of isolated structures and irrigation canals difficult to observe. While the survey advanced, and with the participation of Silvina Ahumada, Martín A. Orgaz, and Edith O. Valverdi, UNCa students, a sketch was put on with tape and compass of every structural find. In March 1995, with the participation of M. Cecilia González, and Vilma Acosta, UNCa students, a survey was carried with digital theodolite, which provided a high precision framework. However, the irregularity of the shapes of the structures made it evident that some survey technique that complemented the precision of the planimetrical and altimetrical measurements with the graphic representation in field was necessary. In December 1995, December 1996, March 1997, and November/December 1997, a plane table survey was carried with the participation of Leandro D'Amore and Marcos N. Quesada, UNCa students. This instrument, even though it is slower than the ones we had previously used, allows the record to be directly graphical, so the shapes are drawn in the field together with the actual shapes and not in a lab over the basis of more or less lined spots, sketches, and memories. The result is a detailed map of great concordance, because observation, interpretation, and representation are carried in the field at one time. This way, any possible mistake or correction could be handled in the field, leaving for the lab just the transcription, drawing of contour line, and interpretation of the relationships between the cartographically represented observations. This is not a minor technical problem. The architectural and structural objects have different visibility, they are found in different states of conservation, and, in general, they are placed in ways that, being irregular in location, obey to the shape of the land, already pretty irregular. The walls of the previously roofed rooms are mostly fallen, remaining hidden under accumulations of masonry stones. There are some tumbling downs of ravines that, also, have totally or partially hidden and/or destroyed some irrigation canals. Anyhow, the structures are generally very visible but their shape is not fully evident. That is why the survey technique employed is important, because it allowed the control of the representation of the observed objects. 3 See note 2.

Unlike many irrigation systems in contemporary Andean communities, the irrigation agriculture of this valley does not show evidences of cooperation among domestic units for the management of shared irrigation canals. Each domestic unit built its own canal and used it for irrigating its own fields, with or without the cooperation of individuals of other units. It becomes impossible, and it is inevitable it happens, to bring about evidences in favour of relationships of appropriation of lands and canals 71

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Figure 5.2: Map of Tebenquiche Chico (taken from Quesada 2001).

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Figure 5.3: Domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico valley. Each domestic compound is indicated in a different shade of grey (taken from Quesada 2001).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA In some parts of the ravines, more or less numerous groups of agricultural terraces have been revealed. It is logical to assume that such terraces were provided with water by the -necessarily higher- canals that went through the same ravine. Hence, having related each canal to a particular domestic compound and over the basis of this functional relationship between terraces and canals, it seems licit to relate those terraces built on the ravines to their immediately up-slope canal and, therefore, to the domestic compound to which this goes to (or from which it comes from). This way, terraces that are planimetrically closer to a domestic compound remain related to another compound that is altimetrically closer because they are both provided with irrigation water by canals that, even though closer to the first one, carry their water flow to the last one.

beyond those that their material design and disposition on the territory provide. The inhabitants of Tebenquiche Chico designed their houses, fields, and canals in such a way that they formed little independent units. Besides, they took care of achieving this, and keeping the system working during the period of occupation of the valley. With the necessary caution any interpretation of social relationships upon the basis of archaeological evidences asks, it seems pretty plausible in this case that the irrigation system was the material manifestation of productive actions of particular social units. Each compound, since a replica of the same components can be clearly seen in each one of them, becomes a functional and residential independent cell. Thus, to think that each social unit was productively independent and lived and operated its respective compound seems simpler than the opposite.

Figure 5.4: TC1’s habitational rooms. Picture taken before starting the excavation. The large accumulation of stones from fallen walls makes the interpretation of the shape of the rooms rather difficult.

Figure 5.5: TC26A1’s wall. The height this wall maintains and the shape and size of the area it delimits allow interpreting it as a previously roofed room, probably a habitational room.

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Figure 5.6: Entrance between TC1A1 and TC1A2 delimited by two big blocks as jambs.

Figure 5.7: Area TC32A1, possible patio associated to habitational rooms.

Each domestic compound has one or more generally contiguous rooms that form a compact residential core. The particular shape of the rooms is variable. In some cases it is rounded, in others it is almost quadrangular; nevertheless, in most of the cases it is hardly visible without previous excavation of the fallen walls (Figure 5.4). The walls are built with boulders in all of the cases; in general, the blocks present a plain side that is selected so to be displayed towards the interior of the room. The current height of the walls is over 0.6 m in all of the cases (Figure 5.5), and in one of them, it almost reaches 2 m. The entrances are visible as openings that interrupt the walls though, in general, they are also delimited by big vertical stones located as jambs (Figure 5.6). In no case can windows, wall tombs, or lintels4 be observed. Rooms have a minimum internal length that in some cases reaches 4.5 m, and a maximum length of 7 m, but intermediate distances are very common too. In those

cases we could observe in detail -that is, those walls that were not covered by fallen boulders-, these are doublelined walls divided by stone masonry. The walls only reach certain height in habitational rooms. All the other structures, except for the containment walls of streamterraces, are delimited by stone walls of little height, not more than 0.2 m. Habitational rooms generally communicate with bigger spaces delimited by lower stone walls through their entrances. These spaces are interpreted as patios for, together with habitational rooms, they form the compact core of each domestic compound (Figure 5.7). These spaces would have been reserved to external domestic activities. Such activities were more visible because the walls that delimited them were lower, and patios would not have been roofed. Nonetheless, the possibility that the walls that are currently visible are only the foundations of higher walls built with perishable materials such as adobe, mud, or dried branches remains. There was no evidence of remains of dried mud masonry or even soft

4 Though the possibility that this might just be an effect of wall falls cannot be discarded.

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Figure 5.8: TC1’s agricultural fields delimited by low stone walls. Above, seen from the western slope of the valley. Below, seen northwards, from the agricultural surface.

Figure 5.9: An accumulation of stones removed from the agricultural surface just immediately behind them can be seen in the centre of the picture. Notice the contrast between the surfaces before (non-stone-cleared) and after (stone-cleared) the accumulation. The stone-cleared fields are the same shown in Figure 5.8.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS On their side, agricultural terraces are located in some parts of the ravines to the left and to the right of the water course, as well as in the left slope of the valley. They are formed by a containment wall behind which sediment has been accumulated so to level the floor (Figures 5.10 and 5.11). There are agricultural terraces of different length, from a few meters up to 40 meters long. As it has been explained before, the groups of agricultural terraces are related to the domestic compounds to which -or from which- the waters that are carried by the canal that goes through the immediately upper ravine flow. They are always parallel to the water course.

accumulations of sediment aside these lines of stones in any of the surveyed cases, but it is also true we ignore the potential effects the erosion of the slopes over this kind of structures might have had in this valley. Together with this compact core, there usually are agricultural structures. There are three types of agricultural fields: enclosed fields, agricultural terraces, and unbounded fields. Enclosed fields are big extensions delimited by low stone walls, more or less internally levelled, located beside the compact core. They were built over the relatively plain surfaces of both terraces at the bottom of the valley, though always in the proximity of the ravines that come down to the water course. They have almost rectangular shapes, with the shorter sides parallel to the water course, and the longer ones perpendicular to it in such a way that, respect the general height of the valley southwards, they have the effect of levelling it as wide steps (Figure 5.8). At one side of the groups of enclosed fields, accumulations of stones produced by the initial preparation of the agricultural field (stone-pile, ronque, or rumimontón) were observed (Figure 5.9).

Finally, unbounded fields occupy the lateral spaces of the domestic compounds, between the enclosed fields and the slopes of the valley. As their name indicates, these fields are not delimited or marked by any construction or structure, which makes it even more difficult to individualize them and, of course, to accurately trace them in the field. Nonetheless, the presence of derivation canals in the entrance of each one of the unbounded fields allows establishing its spatial extension -which has the entrance of the derivation of the irrigation canal to such

Figure 5.10: Above, TC2’s agricultural terraces on the left (eastern) ravine of the river. In the centre, above the agricultural terraces, the path of a canal that would have irrigated them and TC2’s fields on the terrace. Below, agricultural terraces to the west of TC35, on the right (western) slope of the valley; the contention walls are lower due to the lower aspect of the slope; the greater accumulation of sediment makes the utilization of these agricultural terraces quite hard.

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Figure 5.11: Unbounded fields. Above, unbounded fields next to TC2 that would have been irrigated through the same canal that goes by the agricultural terraces (Figure 5.10). Below, TC27’s unbounded fields to the west of the compact core. In both cases, derivations of canals without walls that go towards each area of unbounded fields can be seen in the field.

field as up-slope height, and the entrances of the irrigation canals of the unbounded fields that belong to the down-slope domestic compound as lower height5 (Figure 5.11). The agricultural terraces and enclosed and unbounded fields of each domestic compound are fed by one or two irrigation canals (Figure 5.12). In most of the cases, even the entrance of the canal to its respective

enclosed field or group of fields can be observed; in other cases, a canal was found in the nearby areas. Almost all the canals are independent from one another, and, in some cases, the entire length of the canal could be observed: from the water intake at the marsh (Figure 5.13), through the derivation towards the ravine (Figure 5.14), its passing along this last one (Figure 5.15), up to the arrival to the enclosed or unbounded field on the terrace (Figure 5.16). The better conserved canals are longer than 500 m. In certain parts, we have surveyed remains of abandoned canals that must have been

5 Unbounded fields have been interpreted as such by M. N. Quesada after the detailed survey and analysis of derivation heights and entry canals he made on March 1999 on each one of them.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.12: Canal delimited by stones in the lower section of the eastern terrace.

Figure 5.13: Water intake at the river. The group of stones closes a derivation of water that goes towards the left bottom of the picture. Some stones are completely sunk in the swampy sediment of the marsh. The scale on the stone is equivalent to 0.15 m. It probably belongs to TC27.

Figure 5.14: Derivations from the water intakes at the river to the left (eastern) ravine (indicated by arrows). These are furrows on the clayey substrate that are not delimited by stones; they can be seen in a clearer shade than the surrounding surface.

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Figure 5.15: Canals on the left (eastern) ravine of the river. To the left, piece of TC2’s canal; both persons are standing on the bed of such canal, at approximately 50 m from each other. To the right, TC28’s (above) and TC2’s (below) canals.

Figure 5.16: Canal that goes through the left ravine of the river and enters the eastern terrace. The curve of the path of the canal while it enters the terrace can be seen in the right margin of the picture.

replaced by other ones some meters above or below. The erosive processes on the ravines, nowadays active and evidently active when canals were built, established something like a dialogue with peasants that took them to maintain, reconstruct, and often replace entire canals or some of their parts. In some places of the ravines, fallen walls were surveyed (Figure 5.17). These fallen walls destroyed some of the canals that went through the ravines. Other canals were built over these stones, evidencing reconstructions. In other cases, the canals were abandoned and new canals went through or under

them. In some cases we have surveyed a canal for each field; in others, just one canal for feeding a whole group of fields, taking water from one another while they were being irrigated. On the right slope of the valley we have found some canals that, instead of following the levelling with a soft inclination as all the others, come surreptitiously down the slope cutting it perpendicularly (Figure 5.18). Maybe these perpendicular canals served as escape valves for the flow so to avoid the overflow of the canals and the 80

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.17: Stones from fallen walls on the western slope of the valley. A piece of canal cut down by these stones can be seen to the right of the picture.

Figure 5.18: Perpendicular canals. Above, perpendicular canals that cut TC31C1 and TC31C2; they are not delimited by stones. Below, perpendicular canal delimited by stones that flows into another canal that comes from TC35; a great flat block that cuts the flow of the canal can be seen in the foreground. The first case has a higher aspect than the second one.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA without walls are located at slightly descendent heights, following a regular gradient along the width of the terrace and not along its length as the direction of the canals without walls seems to be indicating. This means that these are not conduction devices that take the flow to areas that are far away from the compact core, but canals that distribute the flow for irrigating the unbounded fields laterally placed beyond the enclosed fields of each domestic compound. This way, following soft but functionally efficient altimetrical tracks, canals without walls and unbounded fields can be interpreted despite their minimum visibility. These canals without walls, hence, would have been about widening the agricultural fields beyond the compact cores by maximizing the use of the irrigation canals of each domestic compound.6 As it can be observed in currently occupied oases, it is probable that canals were covered with marsh vegetation. This hygrophilous vegetation -mainly formed by ranunculaceae, cyperaceae, and grasses- can be cut out with a knife or a shovel from the marsh in order to obtain a loaf of grass that comes together with the soil that is attached to the roots. This practice, called champeo due to the local name of these grasses (champa), consists in the deposition of loafs of grass in the interior of the irrigation canal that, thanks to the water that runs through it, colonizes the field and gets it reproduced. The effect of champeo is a significant reduction of the permeability of the soil and the erosion of the bed thanks to the tight champa vegetation and the organic sediments that are transported through its roots. A canal with a champa bottom does not erode its bed with the same strength as it would if it was simply made of sand. Nonetheless, since there is no evidence of champeo in the past, this is nothing but a conjecture.

Figure 5.19: Non-delimited canal that goes through the eastern terrace. The cut made showed that the bed of the canal was prepared with angular stones and clayey sediment (clearer shade on the base of the cut of the excavation) in order to diminish the permeability of the soil and the speed of the flow.

deterioration of the irrigation facilities. These transversal canals could have also been derivations that went from a higher canal to a lower one, maybe when the upper canal got deteriorated in its lower parts and it was decided to continue the flow losing some meters of altitude. But most likely, they were canals for the derivation of the flow towards groups of agricultural terraces whose containment walls are not always in good visibility conditions. Towards the east of the fields on the eastern terrace and over the upper left terrace, we have surveyed canals that used to carry, transversally or vertically, water to the lower sectors of the valley, which are really far from the water course. Some parts of the canals are not demarcated by stone walls, being observable just thanks to a soft deepening on the land and the abundance of little lineally disposed pebbles. These parts of the canals that do not have walls are covered by limo and stone blocks of irregular sizes, most likely there for reducing the filtration and the speed of the flow in those sandy terraces (figure 5.19). The parts of the canals without walls are not continuous; they do not follow the direction of the dominant slope. Apparently, several parallel canals used to be fed by a same irrigation canal once this had gone away from the compact core of the domestic compound. This interpretation would be based on the fact that the beginnings of the successive parts of parallel canals

In other domestic compounds, three standing stones were surveyed -although in one case inside an enclosed field and in the other two next to the patios, always nearby the compact core. Two of them are big, of irregular elongated shapes, with natural faces and no artificial pigmentation (Figure 5.20). The third one is a dark sub-cylindrical smaller stone (basalt) that was not buried but just laying on the floor, reason for which it is probably a more recent modification or addition (Figure 5.20). In two cases, TC2 and TC32, rocks drilled by metate hollows were surveyed; in both of them, many manos were found around or inside the hollow (Figure 5.21). These metates were clearly related to both domestic compounds. It is very common to find grinding stones (conanas), many times fractured and sometimes recycled as building boulders, in every domestic compound. A last type of structure is the apparently isolated round rooms, delimited by low stone walls, with diameters between 4 m and 7 m (Figure 5.22). These round rooms are found at the margins of the domestic occupations, 6

82

See note 5.

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.20: Standing stones. To the left, TC1E1, located in area TC1A1 beside the agricultural fields. In the centre, TC35E1, located by the break of slope at the top of the ravine, where compact core TC35 would have been settled. To the right, basaltic standing stone TC26E2, located in probable patio TC26A2 (currently fallen).

Figure 5.21: Drilled mortars in two big rocks placed to the east of TC32A26, on the western terrace. They were found together with the stones that can be seen in the picture as manos.

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Figure 5.22: Isolated round rooms. Above, TC27. Below, on the lower sector of the eastern terrace.

generally without direct associations to the compounds, and normally beside rocky outcrops or natural accumulations of big blocks. In several cases, it was observed that these relate to canals -sometimes these even enter round rooms-, for what it is probable that they were some kind of device related to management of water and agricultural work. Nonetheless, the interpretation of these isolated round rooms still waits for more specific investigation.

TC7 It is a compound located on the eastern terrace of the valley, immediately to the north of a little promontory (Figure 5.23). It is formed by a round room (TC7A1) whose entrance, towards the east, is marked by two big jambs, and a little annexed room (TC7A2). Several canals seem to take water from the river at the height of TC26, then go through the west slope of TC1, and direct to a group of fields that is located immediately to the west of the compact core of TC7. These fields (from north to south, TC7A3, TC7A4, TC7A5, and TC7A6) do not have lateral limits, though a big rocky outcrop that is located to the west could have served as northern limit. Though they have been cut by a fallen wall on the slope southwest of TC1, at least two canals were built with the purpose of carrying water to TC7 (TC7C1 and TC7C2). Northeast of TC7, there is an additional group of small fields together with, towards the north, an area delimited by two longitudinal stone-pile accumulations. To the north of TC7, on the ravine, two groups of agricultural terraces

The Domestic Compounds7 7 We have decided to use an alphanumerical nomenclature for the structures. The domestic compounds, as archaeologically delimited units that can be observed in the surface, have been designated with correlative numbers after the prefix TC, which codifies the district of Tebenquiche Chico. Inside each domestic compound, correlatives numbers are used after the prefix A for areas of different sizes, C for canals, and E for all the structures of stone accumulations. Thus, the architectural structures are left denominated by a correlative numeral suffix, a prefix that indicates the type of structure, and a prefix that indicates the domestic compound to which they correspond; this way, for example TC1A1 is the area that was denominated 1 of the compound 1 of Tebenquiche Chico. The structures that are not assigned to any particular domestic compound are designated the same way,

though with the prefix TC without numeral, and correlatively numbered for the entire district.

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Figure 5.23: Domestic compound TC7. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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Figure 5.24: Domestic compound TC1. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

with engraved cross-hatched decoration found at 0.3 m depth and assignable to the first half of the first millennium A.D., to the presence of a clearly Yocavil Tricolour (around Conquest times) shred some meters above.8 Even though there are other compounds with only one residential room (for example, TC34), it is worth stressing that, at the same time, TC7 has a group of not fully demarcated fields. TC7 was probably posterior to the compounds that are located up-slope, or at least it has suffered more the contingencies of erosion due to the collapse of the ravine and the destruction of its canals. The existence of a little group of fields more towards the northwest is perhaps related to the construction of a new

could have been irrigated by the same canals that took water to TC7. In the immediate proximity of TC7A1, towards the north, there is a group of four underground burial chambers. Southwards, already going in the promontory, there is a little group of structures of very irregular shapes. And at the top of the promontory, towards the southeast, there are other three underground burial chambers. Two are the features of TC7 that call the attention when compared to other compounds. Firstly, it only has one room that is potentially residential -though the absence of accumulations of stones from tumbled walls leads to think that it was not roofed or that its walls were made of perishable material and only the foundations were made of stone. A test excavation made in the centre of this room gave a similar sequence to the one observed in TC1: from the presence of grey shreds

8 Though the short quantity of pot shreds recovered from the survey excavation of 1 m x 1 m made in December 1990 must be stressed.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS canal that would have passed through the collapse once earlier canals were useless. At the same time, the proximity of the group of underground burial chambers makes us think on the possibility that TC7 might have been a later settlement within the long duration of the oasis landscape, maybe once the chambers were left unused.9

TC1 (Figure 5.25). The compact core is formed by two residential rooms (TC26A1 and TC26A3), with four patio-like spaces (TC26A2, TC26A4, TC26A6, and TC26A5). In patio TC26A2, there is a basaltic stone that, though currently fallen, stood until 1990 (Figure 5.20). Between room TC26A3 and patios TC26A2 and TC26A4, there is a little stone-pile TC26E1. Two big enclosed fields (TC26A9 and TC26A8) are disposed to the south of the patios, until reaching TC1’s compact core. In the limit between patios TC26A4 and TC26A5, there is a wall that goes on delimiting the inner space of TC27 through the south and demarcates a little room, TC26A7, of unknown function. These fields were waterfed by canals that go through the west of the compact core. The canals of this compound are not visible on the ravine, probably because they were demolished by a great and apparently later collapse (TC-DE3). Structures TC26C1, TC26C2, TC26C3, TC26C4, and TC26C5 could be agricultural terraces, though TC26C2 has the appearance of a canal that would have continued slope up in a short remnant part (TC26C6), just before the mentioned collapse. A semi-delimited area, probably another field (TC26A10), is disposed to the north of field TC1A8. An adjacent area (TC26A11) separates it from stone-pile TC26E4, behind which two bounded areas with an entrance towards the west, TC26A12 and TC26A13, get superposed. To the east of TC26A12, there is a draining furrow with no walls (TC-C8) that would have conducted water towards the limit between big stone-pile TC1E3 and field TC26A10. The water taken by TC-C8 seems to come from three little draining furrows with no walls that drain agricultural areas from TC27 (TC-C9), continue through a canal built over a stone-pile from TC27 (TC-C10), and surround the structure to the west of TC27 taking the flow higher. Since spaces TC26A10 and TC26A11 present a morphology that seems to continue the lower fields of TC1 (TC1A6, TC1A7, and TC1A8) but, in their occidental extreme, they adjust to a field that belongs to TC26 and that is located directly to the north of the compact core of TC1, it would seem that TC26A10 and TC26A11 are remnants of a previous disposition of fields. TC1A1 and TC1A2 -and maybe compound TC1 as a whole- seem to have been built after the building of these fields assigned to TC26. We do not intend to imply a sequence of occupations in both domestic compounds, but -and only as a hypothesis based on the analysis of the disposition of structures- a sequence of building events could be thinkable at least in part of them.

TC1 It is a domestic compound located on the eastern terrace, at the edge of the ravine (Figure 5.24). Its compact core is formed by five bounded spaces: two contiguous residential rooms that are completely surrounded by standing walls (TC1A1 and TC1A2) and communicate with each other through an east-west entrance; a patio (TC1A5) that is located to the south and next to a narrow entrance with south-north circulation and from which one can enter to TC1A1 and TC1A2; and two other spaces (TC1A3 and TC1A4) that are delimited by low lines of stones and are located to the west, at lower altitude than the previous ones, as terraces on a ravine. To the east of the compact core, there are three big enclosed fields (TC1A6, TC1A7, and TC1A8); the two lower ones (TC1A7 and TC1A6, but probably also TC1A8 through stone-pile TC1E2) are water-fed by two canals (TC1C1 and TC1C2) that take water from the river and pass through the west of the compact core once they get to the terrace. Between patio TC1A5 and field TC1A8, there is an accumulation of blocks or stone-pile (TC1E2). TC1C2 would have apparently been destroyed by wall fall TCDE2, while TC1C1 seems to have been partially built over such collapse; these are most likely evidences of maintenance of the irrigation system through the abandonment of a collapsed canal, and the building of another one a little bit higher. Another long accumulation of blocks (TC1E3), most likely originated by the stonepile of the fields, is disposed all along their eastern limit. At the extreme north of field TC1A8, two little areas are left partially bounded by low walls (TC1A9 and TC1A10). In semi-delimited space TC1A10, there is a standing stone (TC1E1). Towards the east of TC1, two canals flow (TC-C1 and TC-C2). Their water intake is not known with certainty, though they seem to be derivations of a possible east oriented canal (currently covered by sediment) that probably used to irrigate the spaces between these canals -maybe being unbounded fields. TC26 It is a domestic compound located on the eastern terrace, by the edge of the ravine, immediately to the north of

TC27 It is a domestic compound located on the eastern terrace, to the north of TC26, and with a similar general disposition than the previous ones (Figure 5.26). Its compact core, nonetheless, is different from TC1’s and TC26’s because it is bounded by a wall with an entrance towards the east. To the interior of this surrounding wall, there is an area (TC27A1) towards the north, a square room with an entrance southwards (TC27A2), a narrow space to the right of TC22A2, and to its left, an area

9 It has to be acknowledged, however, that there is not an actual superposition between the underground chambers and TC7A1 but, instead, only a relationship of close proximity. Differently from TC27, TC7 is the only case in which chambers could be associated to a domestic unit in particular. The closeness of the burial chambers on the promontory and the association of TC7 to the wall fall that destroyed the associated canals, makes probable, instead, the possibility of the burial chambers and the domestic compound representing different moments within the long history of the oasis.

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Figure 5.25: Domestic compound TC26. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

more than 12 m length; TC27C5 runs to the south for about 15 m so to turn afterwards to the east; and continue itself in canals TC27C7 and TC27C8. To the interior of the area delimited this way (TC27A18), there are two round structures with really low double walls (TC27A19 and TC27A20). The entire eastern structural group of TC27 is located really near, practically superposing itself to, group of underground burial chambers TC38. Given these apparent superpositions, and given the construction differences between TC27 and the previous domestic cores, it is possible that the eastern and western groups might not have had a same origin, or that TC27 is diachronic with group of underground burial chambers TC38. The comparison of the pottery collected in TC2710 to that of TC1’s sequence, suggests that TC27 might have been occupied approximately until the fifth century and, then, only since the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries though it is probable that it had some intermediate occupation around the seventh century too. Canal TC-C2, that could be the continuation of TC-C4, would have crossed the group of underground burial chambers from one side to the other. Towards the north of TC27’s compact core, there is a great open area (TC27A22) that

(TC27A3) that is delimited by the wall of TC27A2, the surrounding wall, and a secondary wall that comes from the east. A little bit to the south of TC27A1 and almost in the centre of the compound, a round space delimited by a low wall has an entrance by the south (TC27A4). By the wall of this compound, a small square room (TC27A6) with a west narrow entrance delimits as well a little area (TC27A5) on the southeast corner of the compound. By the west of the compound, a long canal (TC27C1) gets to the terrace carrying water to canal TC27C2 that runs southwards surrounding field TC27A14 by the west. A corral (TC27A15) built to the north of the fields and between these and the compact core seems to have a more recent origin. Between fields TC27A8 and TC27A16, there is stone-pile TC27E1 that goes on southwards between TC27A7 and TC27A11; between fields TC27A11 and TC27A16, and between TC27A12 and TC27A13, there is another stone-pile (TC27E2); finally, to the east of TC27A12 and TC27A13, there are two more stone-piles (TC27E3 and TC27E4), in whose interior canal TC27C4 was built. To the east of the compact core and to the north of the fields, there is an unbounded area (TC27A17). Towards the east of TC27A17 there is an architectural group that is bounded by two canals: TC27C6 runs to the east, with a little bit

10

88

See section “Pottery and Time”, this same Chapter.

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.26: Domestic compound TC27. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl). Right top: detail of compact core TC27.

extends without any divisions. In it, there is a round structure of low double walls (TC27A21), and two canals (TC27C11 and TC27C12) that go into the terrace though, since they were destroyed by a major collapse (TC-DE6), they do not seem to have been rebuilt. On the

ravine, structures TC27C13, TC27C14, TC27C15, and TC27C16 could have been agricultural terraces or remains of canals that might have been destroyed by collapses (TC-DE5 and TC-DE6). To the east of open area TC27A22, there is a canal (TC-C4, probably 89

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 5.27: Domestic compound TC2. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl). Right bottom: detail of compact core TC2.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.28: Domestic compound TC28. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl). Centre top: detail of compact core TC28.

continued at lower heights by TC-C1 or TC-C2) behind which there are some isolated structures. A big room (TC27A23) with an entrance towards the west is joined, to the north, by a smaller one (TC27A24). A large area perhaps the most cultivated- is located towards the west of compact core TC26, delimited by TC27’s fields to the north, and by a huge stone-pile (TC27E5) to the east. Towards the east of TC27E5, there is a big room with an entrance towards the south (TC27A25). TC27A25 is surrounded by a canal that was built inside stone-pile

TC27E5 through the west, and by a canal without walls (TC-C7) through the east. To the north of TC26’s compact core there is another space (TC27A26). TC2 It is a domestic compound to the north of the just described open area, on the eastern terrace, on the extreme south of a large stone-pile (Figure 5.27). Two rooms, TC2A4 and TC2A5, are respectively disposed to the north and to the south of patio TC2A10, with 91

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA entrances towards the east. To the north of TC2A4, there are two contiguous rooms, TC2A2 and TC2A3 (this last one, probably a patio). To the west of TC2A5, there is a contiguous room (TC2A6). This has an entrance towards the south, towards another patio (TC2A11) that apparently used to lead to another room (TC2A7). To the south of TC2A7, there is a big room (TC2A8) with an entrance towards the north, and a smaller room (TC2A9) in its north-western corner. To the west, two fields (TC2A11 and TC2A10), bounded by stone-piles TC2E1, TC2E2, and TC2E3, get water from a canal (TC2C1) that arrives to the terrace a little bit higher. This canal goes through the ravine, where it would have provided with water three groups of agricultural terraces. The highest group is formed by two agricultural terraces, the intermediate one by thirteen, and the inferior one by six. When it reaches the terrace, the canal goes through the west of TC29 and borders the west side of the stone-pile behind which TC2 is, not without previously having gone through the just mentioned fields. Afterwards, it crosses the stone-pile towards the southeast so to get to the open area that is between two stone-piles to the south of TC2 and continue southwards. Probably this open area was also cultivated besides the described agricultural terraces and fields. The stone-pile that is located to the east of TC2 includes a rock with a grinding hole in its west border (TC2E4), around which several manos were found. Inside the stone-pile and to its east, there are four isolated round shaped structures (TC-EA1, TC-EA2, TCEA3, and TC-EA4), not assigned to TC2 yet. TC28 It is a compound on the terrace that is integrated by a room (TC28A1) surrounded by possible patios (TC28A3, TC28A2, and TC28A4) (Figure 5.28). A long canal (TC28C1) would have had its water intake much higher up the valley, but it has been partially destroyed by fall TC-DE7. Along the ravine, it would have water-fed three agricultural terraces (TC28C5, TC28C6, and TC28C7). When it reached the terrace, to the west of TC29, it would have irrigated a big open area (TC28A5) to the west of the compact core and that is bounded by a huge stone-pile through the east (TC28E1). To the south of such stonepile, two canals (TC28C3 and TC28C4) run north to south aside TC29, so that area between stone-piles (TC28A6) could have been put under cultivation too. TC29 It has the same general disposition than TC28 and it is placed on the eastern terrace (Figure 5.29). It is integrated by three contiguous rooms (TC29A1, TC29A2, and TC29A3) that give to a big open area (TC29A5). Towards the northwest of the compact core, there is a big round-shaped room with an entrance to the east. Towards the northeast of area TC29A5, there is a semi-circular structure (TC29A6). Immediately to the north of the compact core, there are three large stone-piles that delimit between them areas that could have been cultivated. Four parts of a canal (TC29C4, TC29C3, TC29C1, and TC29C2) cross the stone-piles in southeast direction

Figure 5.29: Domestic compound TC29. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS indicating that this canal might have provided with irrigation water those areas between stone-piles (TC29A9, TC29A10, and TC29A11). TC35 It is a domestic compound located on the western terrace of the valley (Figure 5.30). Regrettably, great part of the archaeological structures were dismounted in order to build three big corrals, presumably during the first half of the twentieth century (they were photographed in 1923, Figure 4.17). To the north of these corrals, when the site was visited in 1989, there were two sub-circular rooms, one of them with a kind of deteriorated roof.11 To the west and to the north of the camp, there are remains of round-shaped rooms, nowadays without their walls because their stones were used for the construction of the corrals. In front of the door of the camp, a standing stone (TC35E1) -that was omitted by Krapovickas in his thesis from 1955 but mentioned in 1968- raises a little bit higher and narrower than that of TC1 though of the same general type. A long canal (TC35C1) would have water-fed fields located somewhere in the compound and a little group of agricultural terraces located some 100 m up, on the slope of the ravine. Even though the visibility has been reduced to a minimum because of the recent re-occupation, this compound seems to have answered to the same general pattern of all the other domestic compounds of the eastern side of the valley. A canal reaches the western terrace at the height of TC35, carrying water to a group of fields located to the east of a great rocky outcrop a bit towards the south of the compact core. A group of agricultural terraces located on the ravine to the east of the compact core would have been irrigated as well. After going through the north of this rocky outcrop, the canal goes to the edge of the terrace, which in that spot approximates to the river course, where the western terrace ends. There, it runs parallel to other canals that come from further up, probably from TC33 or TC32. Perpendicularly to these canals, where the terrace has already become a slope, five transversal canals seem to derive the flow towards an additional group of agricultural terraces located on the ravine. TC34 It is a compound located on the western terrace of the valley, directly to the north of TC35, and with the same general disposition (Figure 5.31). Differently from the other compounds, TC34’s residential core is integrated by one sole room, TC34A1, literally built in the middle of the agricultural fields that are located in a relatively low zone of the terrace. In the north-western corner of a big 11 That kitchen was used as camp that time, knowing afterwards that Krapovickas had camped in the same place in 1952. In 1995, after two campaigns camping in the new post some 500 m down, we decided to recycle these two rooms, joining them with both stone walls to the corral so to build there what, in December 1996, was baptized as “Archaeological Camp Dr. Pedro Krapovickas”, National University of Catamarca. Even though such camp is directly settled on archaeological compound TC35, little or nothing was left of it already due to the previous construction of corrals and kitchens.

Figure 5.30: Domestic compound TC35. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA field (TC34A2), there is room TC32A1, with entrance from the east. Northwards, fields TC34A3, TC34A4, TC34A5, and TC34A6 form the agricultural group. Between both groups of fields, there are stone-piles that are the outcome of their agricultural preparation. There are no distinguishable canals going into these fields, but upon the basis of their altitude, it is possible to relate them to canals TC34C1 and TC34C2, 90 m to the north. These canals are interrupted, but they might have continued through any of the agricultural terraces that are between them and the fields. Anyhow, such canals would have provided water not only to the fields, but also to the many agricultural terraces that are disposed on the ravine up to canal TC35C1. Towards the north of TC34A6 and TC34A7, short walls seem to partially define other cultivation area (TC34A10), in which two little walls might demarcate the entrance of the canal. To the west, a draining canal that comes from TC32 goes to the western field of TC34. TC33 It is a domestic compound located on the western terrace, directly to the north of TC34 (Figure 5.32). Its compact core is integrated by two groups of rooms. The eastern group is formed by rooms TC33A1, with a southeast entrance, and TC33A2, more to the east. To the south of TC33A1, there is a patio, TC33A4, to which the little rooms of the western group, TC33A5, TC33A6, and TC33A7, would have had entrance to. Between both groups and directly to the south, there is a big corral, TC33A8, and a smaller one (TC33A3) to the west of TC33A2. Both, if they are not of recent construction, were at least reconstructed using stones from the walls of the rooms. By the east of the core, a canal that, even though it is not really visible nowadays, would have been a continuation of the long canal TC33C1 comes in, under which a complex system of fields (TC33A29, TC33A30, and TC33A31) and agricultural terraces (around 30 walls of terracing) is disposed. At the same time, TC33C1 would have been the continuation of short segment TC33C2 that, some 50 m above and to the east of TC33C3, runs through over 100 m down the ravine. These canals, surrounding the lower fields of TC32 that present higher altitudes, would have entered the terrace to the north of area TC33A9, distributing from there on water to TC33A10 and to all the other fields to the south of this one, and, besides, to the other groups of fields, being derived to the west down to the large stone-pile that divides this compound from TC32. It is probable that this compound was at the same time divided in two. On one hand, the Eastern core (TC33A1, TC33A2) would have been integrated to the eastern (TC33A10, TC33A11, TC33A12, TC33A13, TC33A14) and central-eastern (TC33A15, TC33A16, TC33A18, TC33A17) fields; on the other hand, the Western core (TC33A5, TC33A6, TC33A7) would have been integrated to the centralwestern fields (TC33A19, TC33A20, TC33A21, TC33A22, TC33A23, TC33A24, TC33A25, TC33A28), the big western field TC33A27, and the smaller TC33A26. Right now, it is difficult to state this

Figure 5.31: Domestic compound TC34. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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Figure 5.32: Domestic compound TC33. Relative altitude (0 m contourline ca. 3650 m asl). Right: detail of associated compact core and fields.

subdivision because it is not as clear as the definition of the compounds. Thus, it is considered as a sole compound, but with the previous clarification of its possible more complex integration. In such case, the subcompounds of TC33 would not have enjoyed the functional independence that the rest of the compounds had. If this was so, we would be in front of a case of internal complexity of the domestic pattern. TC32 This compound is located on the extreme north of the western terrace, in a kind of promontory this one has. It is also integrated, as TC33, by two residential groups (Figure 5.33). The eastern group is formed by some contiguous sub-circular rooms, two of them intercommunicated (TC32A1 and TC32A2), which, plus another one (TC32A3), give to a patio. Two rooms a little bit further away are disposed to the north (TC32A4 and TC32A5). TC32A4 presents an entrance to TC32A3 that has been closed due to its obstruction with stones. A similar case can be observed in TC32A1, which seems to have an ancient entrance to the west, afterwards obstructed, that used to give to patio TC32A6, to which the western group also had entrance to. This, differently from the previous one, has a circular surrounding wall that defines an inner space subdivided in three rooms. A long canal (TC32C1) surrounds both residential cores through the east and through the south, providing water to two groups of fields that are divided by a large stone-pile, to the south of which there is TC33. To the east of this stone-pile, there are fields TC32A11, TC32A12, TC32A13, TC32A14, TC32A15, TC32A16, TC32A17, 95

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 5.33: Domestic compound TC32. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl). Right: detail of associated compact core and fields.

TC32A18, and TC32A19. To its west, there are fields TC32A20, TC32A21, TC32A22, TC32A23, TC32A24, TC32A25, and TC32A26. On the west side of the stonepile, by the wall that divides TC32A25 from TC32A26, there are two rocks with grinding holes -manos were found inside (Figure 5.21). On this same lateral, a canal that would have drained in TC32C2 would have run, carrying water towards the open space that is to the west of TC34’s western fields. Canal TC32C1 continues southwards, through the slope behind the terrace. Some 100 m to the south of TC32C1, it would have provided water to some agricultural terraces that are disposed on the west slope of the valley. The same as TC33, this compound might have been integrated by two subdivisions. One subdivision would have been integrated by the eastern core and the group of fields to the east of the stone-pile; the other subdivision would have been integrated by the western core, the fields to the west of the stone-pile, and the agricultural terraces on the western slope of the valley. The wall that divides patios TC32A6 and TC32A7 seems to separate both cores, and the stone-pile would have separated cultivation areas. This subdivision becomes more visible than in the case of TC33, where the reutilization of stones for building the corral TC33A8 apparently affected the ruins. Both subdivisions would have been provided with water by the same canal (TC32C1), altering, thus, the general pattern observed in the valley. The fact that the westwards entrance of TC32A1 might have been closed makes us consider that a probable process in which the initial domestic pattern would have become more complex might have occurred. Part of the compound would have formed another compound, changing the orientation of the rooms and building new ones towards the other side.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS room (TC31A1), and another one annexed to the south (TC31A2). This last one would have been a residential room. TC31C3 continues in TC31C4 at the other side of the core. Apparently, TC31C1 and TC31C3/TC31C4 would have been left useless, being replaced by TC31C2, whose altitude coincides with a section that is located some 100 m to the south down the ravine (TC31C5), and probably also with a short section some 250 m even more to the north (TC31C6). TC31C5 would have provided water to two groups of agricultural terraces that are placed at one and other side of a transversal canal (TC31C7), which probably was an attempt for deriving the water from the upper parts of TC31C3 or TC31C2, nowadays lost, to the lower canal (TC31C1). Other transversal canals communicate TC31C3 and TC31C2 downwards, and probably represent successive attempts of maintenance or reconstruction of an irrigation system in progressive corrosion, perhaps caused by the great erosion due to the steep slopes and the loose nature of the soil. Probably, TC31C2 and TC31C3 would have provided water to cultivation areas located to the south of TC32 and to the west of TC34, though there is no evidence of this besides the direction of the canals. Everything seems to indicate that TC31’s canal system suffered a constant harassment due to the erosion of its beds. The superposition of the core with previous canals would indicate that this compound’s settlement was part of such process of agricultural expansion towards the margins of the valley. TC30 This last compound is located on the edge between the extreme north of the western terrace and the western slope of the valley (Figure 5.35). Two contiguous rooms, one apparently a residential room (TC30A1), and the other of bigger dimensions (TC30A2), are located in the centre of a big area (TC30A3) delimited by a group of stone-piles. Canal TC30C1 goes under TC30A3, after which other group of stone-piles delimit two fields (TC30A4 and TC30A5) downwards. TC30C1 could have been the continuation of another canal located some 100 m northwards (TC30C3). Another canal (TC30C2), higher than the previous one, goes westwards of the compound, probably being the continuation of TC30C4, other section that gets interrupted some 150 m northwards. Several parallel walls between TC30C1 and TC30C2 could have integrated a group of agricultural terraces that were irrigated from TC30C2, or successive attempts for maintaining TC30’s canal system. The same way, between TC30C3 and TC30C4, there are two walls that could have been agricultural terraces or remains of a canal. Erosion makes rather difficult the decision in favour of one or other alternative; though in plane view they seem more agricultural terraces than a canal, the levelling of the land that should be expected if this was so is not observable. They could have also been containment walls, built there with the purpose of protecting the canals that go further down the slope from the slipping of sediment and stones. Some 60 m towards the south, a group of canals and agricultural terraces continues this

Figure 5.34: Domestic compound TC31. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

TC31 It is located on the extreme north of the western terrace, on the lower part of the slope (Figure 5.34). There, topography forms an amphitheatre whose stairs are demarcated by three canals of different altitude (down to up, TC31C1, TC31C2, and TC31C3). Interrupting the path of TC31C3, it is the core formed by a big round 97

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA force that was necessary for the production or, at least, managed it.12 Each domestic unit’s agricultural spaces are more or less similar in what regards their extension. Though their quality is probably not the same; fields and agricultural terraces have different quantities of sunlight hours: the shadows projected by the surrounding mountains make each piece of land to actually have a different quality of sunlight. Furthermore, the degree of sunlight can be technically controlled through plant fences, such as the current badre -Neosparton ephedroides Griseb- enclosures (Figure 5.36). Even though soils are, to some extent, similar between them, it is very likely that they did not have the same compression everywhere. The compression and composition of the soil have not only affected the agronomic quality of the fields. The canal systems for irrigation water have had to take into account not only slopes but also permeability, being this last one a main concern both for current (Figure 5.37) and ancient (Figure 5.19) peasants. At the present time, little effort is dedicated to agriculture in Tebenquiche Chico. The tender, who does not live there permanently, cultivates fields that are located in different places along the valley. In such fields, he cultivates potatoes, broad beans, maize (Figure 5.38), mint, lettuce, alfalfa, and chard. Nevertheless, even though we could assume qualitative differences in the agricultural soils, their edaphic and agronomic qualities are unknown and, thus, the sense or quantification of such differences cannot be established. It becomes pretty clear, hence, that each domestic unit took charge of the management of the irrigation water, a resource as vital as land in Puna agriculture (Bolin 1994), independently. Each domestic compound had its irrigation canal, which was independent from the rest from the water intake at the river to, at least, the irrigation of its fields. Once the enclosed fields were passed through, the water resource seems to have gone towards unbounded lateral fields or, in the case of the domestic compounds that are built to the west of the river, to groups of agricultural terraces located on the western slope of the valley.

Figure 5.35: Domestic compound TC30. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

The relevance of the domestic management of irrigation water could not be more emphasized: the residential compact cores are located, generally, at the exact spot where the domestic canal enters the terrace after having travelled through the high ravine. This way, following an up-to-down sequence, the structure of the domestic compound can be described the following way: water intake – marsh – ravine – (in several cases) agricultural terraces – edge of the terrace – residential core – enclosed fields – unbounded fields – (in the western compounds) agricultural terraces on the slope. Each domestic unit occupied an altitudinal stripe -that is, the same as canals

compound. Between them, there is a circular room with low walls, quite similar to those described for the eastern margin of the eastern terrace. The Domestic Landscape The oasis of Tebenquiche Chico was built through the accretion of a series of little domestic oases. Each domestic unit can be delimited in the field constituting, thus, a little productive system. This way, the households and inner and outer spaces of the daily practices, the agricultural fields -enclosed fields, agricultural terraces, and unbounded fields-, and, in some probable cases, the corrals, integrated an architectural cluster that was independent from those of the neighbouring domestic units. Agricultural lands were then distributed between domestic units; each domestic unit provided the labour

12 Leach’s recent ‘horticultural’ proposal regarding the differentiation between garden and farm and the role played by the first one in the beginnings of agriculture (Leach 1997) might be interesting in this context as conceptual distinction.

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Figure 5.36: Badre reed (Neosparton ephedroides Griseb.) plant fence that delimits a field currently under cultivation in Tebenquiche Chico. Notice, in the centre of the picture, that in those places were badre reed has not grown yet, the fence is formed by the accumulation of shrub dry branches. The height that badre reed plants reach does not only impede animals passing through, it also reduces sunlight hours over the cultivations.

Figure 5.37: Irrigation canal covered with champa (marsh vegetation) currently in use in Antofallita. This is one of many techniques for maximizing the flow of irrigation water that goes into agricultural fields, in this case, by diminishing the permeability and erosion of the bed.

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of canals to certain particular domestic compounds are hypotheses that have different degrees of empiric backing, because empiric evidence is, at its time, of heterogeneous visibility and uneven state of conservation. Reason for what, in great part, this reconstruction is based upon the reasonable assumption according to which the principles of organization of the space that were watched at the domestic compounds of greater visibility operated as well in all the domestic groups. Taking into account the topographic restrictions that technical requirements for the transportation of water flows in open ducts must face and the ordering of the structures of the sequence of domestic compounds along a gradient that is attitudinally testable, this assumption becomes backed by the technical feasibility of this having been so. Some domestic compounds present certain traits of having been built after the neighbouring domestic compounds. For example, TC1 seems to have been built after some TC27’s fields. This would indicate that the occupation of the space did not occur all at once. Differences in certain architectural features can also lead us to believe in some temporal variations in what regards the construction of the different compounds. Nonetheless, it is possible that, at least during some time, all the compounds were contemporaneously occupied.13 There is no architectural superposition between compounds that affects the functioning of the underlying compound, so the fundamental functional independence of each domestic compound gets reaffirmed. In no case does a compound depend on the water that is derived from a canal that has previously gone through another compound -though the cases of possible sub-compounds TC33 and TC32 should be taken into account separately. There are not any cases in which a compound occupies plots leaving a neighbouring compound without any agricultural space either. Even though there are cases, as TC28 and TC29, in which there are not clearly observable enclosed fields, these appear associated to groups of agricultural terraces and stone-piles that are delimited by rocky outcrops. Hence, the high decentralization of the system of agricultural appropriation, management, and production of Tebenquiche Chico allows thinking in a coetaneous though independent functioning of each domestic minisystem.

Figure 5.38: Current agricultural field of corn approximately at 3,550 m asl in Tebenquiche Chico. Notice the corn plants inside the inner spaces of the field, which is delimited by earthen edges. Some poplars have been planted inside the field. The field is surrounded by a fence of shrub branches. Only one canal takes water to this field.

did- that came from the river and went through the ravine to one and other side, so to open itself once it arrived to the terrace. Since they are marked by the narrow stripe through which the canal runs, the limits between domestic compounds are clearly visible in the higher sectors. In the middle parts of the domestic compounds, these limits, pretty imprecise though generally visible, are demarcated by the divisions of patios and fields. Instead, as the domestic stripes get broaden while the enclosed field areas are passed through, the limits between domestic compounds disappear and become unclear; they can only be reconstructed through the comparison of the altitude of each unbounded field’s water intake. It is necessary to say, as well, that in several cases the accurate assignation of canals on a ravine to a particular domestic compound is difficult because, given the edge that separates both topographic features of different altitude -ravine and terrace-, and the strong erosion that exists in some sectors of the ravines, the association possibilities are numerous. This means that assignations

On the other hand, and as we have pointed out above, compounds TC32 and TC33 show other potentialities. These compounds, though TC32 more clearly because TC33 has been modified by the recent reutilization of two areas as corrals, appear related to two residential cores, each one of them associated to a differentiable group of fields; nonetheless, they share the same canal. Actually, these compounds sure contradict the formerly proposed pattern. However, at least in the more visible case of 13

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See section “Chronology of the Oasis”, this same Chapter.

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS social unit is left materially, spatially, and functionally demarcated by its agricultural structures.14

TC32, the possible closure of TC32A1’s entrance towards common patio TC32A7, and the opening of its communication towards the opposite side could have been expressions of an inner dynamic of segregation of one part of the social group or its division. Each resulting subgroup would have built their fields to each side of the rocky outcrop, but would have also continued sharing the irrigation canal from which water would have derived to both groups of agricultural fields. The case of TC33 is probably similar. The same as the relationships established between TC1 and TC27, TC32 seems to show a dynamic, a historical process. But unlike them, which in the end seemed to indicate a succession of their constructions followed by their coetaneous occupation, TC32 seems to show an inner process of differentiation that, if true, could imply a limit to this pattern’s general lasting.

But not all the domestic space is internally equivalent; there is a materially built gradation of social interaction. Even though the agricultural structures of each compound are the ones that delimit the social units, each compound also has a more compact architectural core in which that group’s activities are contained. Even though it is not possible to categorically state that the access of the individuals of a family group to the domestic space of a neighbouring unit was actually restricted, it becomes clear, nonetheless, that such access was materially gradated through the architecture that enclosed fields, patios, and rooms. This gradation that goes from the external limits of the domestic compounds towards the interior of the roofed rooms, from the most visible to the least visible, from the spaces that are more exposed to supra-domestic interaction towards the interaction contexts that are more restricted to the family unit is not determined by architecture but it is strongly conditioned by it. In the long period of time the daily experience represents, architectural pattern and social structure correspond each other mutually in such a way that the domestic becomes reinforced by the monumentalization of its architecture, and the architecture acquires a very persuasive weight due to the daily nature of the interactions that are developed in its scenario. Agricultural spaces, patios, and rooms are three degrees of progressive exclusion. None of these spaces, nonetheless, is more essential than the others because, anyhow, they are practical devices through which the domestic unit is built at the same time that they are built by the domestic unit.15 The productive and reproductive functionality of the domestic social unit is technically implied, on one hand, in the shape and disposition of its architecture, and on the other, in the material delimitation of the social interaction that is implied in the gradation of space. Taking into account both aspects of architecture, then, it is possible to say that it is a practice as well as a representation of the social relationships. The house of the domestic unit is exactly located at the maximum altitude its irrigation canal reaches on the terrace. Moving that altitude minus a relatively constant gradient, there are the enclosed fields, the unbounded fields, and the agricultural terraces. Since it is only possible to appropriate those cultivation lands that the productive unit will be capable of irrigating -what means that the appropriation of water determines the appropriation of the land-, such productive unit will be able to appropriate only those lands up to the line that is drawn by the irrigation canal -generally not visible but plausible of

Other group of processual evidences is given by TC31. There, different canals were consecutively built, used up by erosion, and left useless, so to finally be replaced by a new one. TC31C1 and TC31C3 seem to be the first ones, together with two or three other intermediate canals indicating some other attempts of system maintenance. The construction of the residential core above C3 indicates the diachronic nature of TC31’s settlement. But, above all, the repeated abandonment of old canals and the construction of new ones indicate how difficult the history of the agricultural settlement of TC31 was. It is TC31 the compound that faced the biggest difficulties that were brought up by the erosion of the canals. TC31 is settled on the margins of the west terrace, already at its limit with the slope of the valley. There, differently from the ravines where the land is compact and rocky, the soil is sandy and loose. The lower sections of the slope are covered with entrances of oculto (Ctenomys sp.) burrows, which prefer sandy and soft sediments and at the same time contribute to the diminishment of the already little steadiness of the land. TC31 was settled on a marginal space within the context of the agricultural settlements of the valley, and its history, shown in the remains of successive canals, can illustrate the high cost this meant. This could be another hint of dynamics, though in this case, maybe related to the occupation of Tebenquiche Chico as a whole. The occupation of marginal spaces, with the consequent increase of the relative cost of management of the agricultural mini-system, probably indicates an economic and demographic expansion beyond the practical possibilities of reproduction of the same domestic pattern. But, in the end, what turns out clearly visible is the domestic pattern that implies, at one time, a spatial demarcation and a social demarcation. The domestic compounds are delimited between them by material structures of appropriation of agricultural resources water and land- in such a way that it is the agricultural function the one that delimits the social space. To put this graphically, the access of a family to the space is left limited by the access of the neighbouring family. Each

14

Not without a trace of perplexity, and in the context of the agricultural construction of the oasis, we could say that the infrastructure is the superstructure and vice versa. Anyhow, in Chapter 2, this same volume, an alternative dialectic conceptual framework to this dichotomist terminology is discussed. 15 The current interpretation of the social relationships through their architectural representation is based on this, something that Hodder had presented with some restrain (1990).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA TC2A3.16 The excavation of TC2 has revealed a pattern of sedimentation and monumentalization that is essentially the same to that one studied in TC1, but, since this information is still being processed while this work is being written, its detailed description will not be included. For a better understanding of the complex archaeological stratigraphy of TC1 -and after having previously introduced the categories of monumentalization and sedimentation that are directly relevant to this discussion- its description is presented next.

reconstruction- that, from the compact core, carries water through the terrace towards the enclosed fields, the unbounded fields, and the agricultural terraces that are on the slope. Being that line the upper limit of the extension of lands that the particular domestic units can appropriate, its lower limit will be fixed by the parallel irrigation canal that comes from the house that is located immediately downwards attitudinally speaking. This means that -since besides it would not be functional that two irrigation canals cross their paths- the maximum altitude of each irrigation canal on the terrace will be the one that determines the extension of the lands they will be able to irrigate (Mitchell 1994; Seligmann and Bunker 1994; Treacy 1994a, 1994b). The meaningful nature of these determining spots of the social appropriation of the land could not have been more noticeable than through the way the households that belong to the different social units of production and appropriation are disposed.

The Building of the House as Monument The construction of the house of domestic compound TC1 was initiated with the excavation and levelling of the edge of the left terrace of the valley.17 The excavation of the terrace consisted on a levelling; the pit inside which the house of two rooms would be constructed would have been more profoundly excavated in its eastern and northern borders than in its western and southern ones because, for a start, the last one -afterwards A1’s southern border-, since it was already levelled, would have

The description of each one of the domestic compounds presented above has stressed the delimitation of each one of them respect the neighbouring compounds. That, inevitably, has also been an exposition of the technical functionality of each one of the agricultural mini-systems through which the domestic compounds are defined. That is; if the structure of the descriptions and the delimitations of the domestic compounds corresponds to the technically verifiable sequence that goes from the water intake to the agricultural fields -going through canals, agricultural terraces, compact cores, fields-, it is because the domestic compounds have been built according to that same logic, that is, the practice of agricultural appropriation and production. In this sense, saying that each domestic compound is a little oasis itself or that the oasis has a domestic structure is, better than a literary metaphor, a description of structure and practices.

16

The excavations in TC1 were initiated with the survey of 1 m² made in November 1990. In November/December 1993, March and November/December 1995, November/December 1996, and March 1997, the stratigraphic excavation of TC1A1’s and TC1A2’s total area, plus the access hallway to TC1A1 and the northern sector of TC1A5, was undertaken. The excavations in TC2 were started in November/December 1996, when the levels of wall falls of masonry and roofs were excavated, and continued in March 1999 reaching, in some parts of the structure, Phase 1 deposit levels over the basal sterile sediment. 17 The basal sediment was formed by a compact reddish sandy-limo sediment with great quantity of stones in it. Apparently, the bottom of the valley was formed by the volcanic eruption of Tebenquiche mountain, which might have produced the collapse of the south-eastern wall of its crater, afterwards remodelled by glacial agents. The volcano hypothesis would be supported by the morphology of the valley: the interior of the valley waters up the joints would be a remnant of the crater. The glacier hypothesis would be supported by the transportation of great blocks in southeast direction, that is, going down the valley. These would not necessarily be alternative hypotheses, because there might have been glacial action after an eruption produced the general modelling of the valley. Anyhow, one or the other are, in the end, previous to the Cuartarian, and by the Holocene, the water course would have already produce erosion in the bottom of the valley approximately reaching its current level. The water course allows the growing of a marsh; both terraces are left at each side of the stream with little disperse campo and tolar-type vegetation (Aldunate, Armesto, Castro, and Villagrán 1981; Haber 1992a). Since the water course runs almost beside the west slope of the valley, the western terrace is much narrower and shorter. On the contrary, the eastern terrace is really wide and continues towards the south forming the campo of Tebenquiche, that is, the fan that comes down up to the salt lake, forming a vast beach. TC1 is placed at medium height over the border of the eastern terrace. Everything seems to indicate that a layer of sand currently accumulated over the basal sediment used to form the surface, which would have had a south (waters down) and probably west (towards the border of the terrace) inclination until reaching the abrupt ravine the water course cuts.

But the strength of the domestic as practice and representation is not exclusively based on technical conditionings; it is also based -in close relationship to the previous- on the qualitative gradation of social space. Hence, the same way as the description of the external domestic spaces has contributed to the comprehension of the delimitation of each domestic compound as a productive unit, the description of the internal domestic spaces will bring something about to the comprehension of the role of architecture in social reproduction. It is the inner domestic spaces -that is, those restricted to inter-visibility- the ones that exclude the extra-domestic interactions to a greater degree. Thus, it is in these scenarios where domestic relationships are greatly reproduced. Subsequently, the relevant information to this discussion is presented in greater detail. This information was obtained through stratigraphic excavations in habitational rooms TC1A1 and TC1A2, in patio area TC1A5, and, partially, in habitational room

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Figure 5.39: (a) West-East section of rooms TC1A2 and TC1A1 by coordinate line 105 seen from the south (taken from D’Amore 2002). Horizontal and vertical scales are equivalent. The numbering of the vertical scale shows depth, in meters, from contour-line 0. The numbering of the horizontal scale shows distance, in meters, according to the coordinate system of the site. The numbers on the differently shaped boxes show the designation of each stratigraphic unit. Notice the size and depth of the cuttings of the pits and that the break of slope at the top of the pits is not defined in sterile basal floors [183] and [58]. Construction technique of the masonry: double-lined parallel stone walls with intermediate mud filling. Notice that the bases of the parallel walls are at different heights and do no present any foundations; a possible excavation of both rooms can be assumed. Stone accumulations due to wall falls can be also noticed at different depths; they are deeper in room A2 than in room A1. An annexe to stool [94] that goes along part of the eastern wall of the room can be seen in the eastern extreme of TC1A2. (b) North-South section of room TC1A1 and area TC1A5 by coordinate line 204 seen from the west (taken from D’Amore 2002). Horizontal and vertical scales are equivalent. The numbering of the vertical scale shows depth, in meters, from contour-line 0. The numbering of the horizontal scale shows distance, in meters, according to the coordinate system of the site. The numbers on the differently shaped boxes show the designation of each stratigraphic unit. Notice a re-excavated pit in the southern extreme of the room. The break of slope at the top of the pits is not defined in sterile basal floor [58]. See the construction technique of the masonry, with double-lined parallel stone walls with intermediate mud filling. The bases of the parallel walls do no present any foundations. Notice that the ground of the terrace’s natural floor in the northern extreme of room A1 is at a different height than that of area A5; an assumed excavation of A1 can be noticed.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA probably needed no excavation at all.18 This way, A1’s northern and eastern walls and A2’s northern wall are, besides being the walls of the house, real containment walls, while the southern stone walls of both rooms are divisions of architectonic spaces that do not have any containment function for the excavated sides. The basal level of A2 is lower than that of A1. Besides, southwards, the basal floor of A2 has not been levelled; a higher border, probably at its natural level, was left. Upon this elevation of the extreme south of A2, a little bench that appears delimited from the rest of the room by a stone wall was built.

walls of A2 would be built (Figure 5.39). The unevenness between both rooms is defined by the surface [213] on which a stone was placed resembling a step [155]. The more detailed information about these building events comes from room A1, because, due to the weakness of its walls, these could be partially excavated revealing the following group of data. The excavation of pit [71] and its successive fillings [69], [66], and [63] are, being previous to the construction of wall [45], the most ancient events recorded in the excavation (Figure 5.40). Pit [71] lay underneath the base of wall [45]; thus, and following the principle of superposition, the wall is posterior. Taking into account the spatial disposition of the pit and the wall, it is very probable that their superposition was not produced randomly. If pit [71] and its fillings were produced with the idea of delimiting an inner space, as it seems to be the case, the succession of events that is implied in the excavation of pit [71] and its fillings would have been part of a longer sequence of events that would have included the construction of the walls, the disposition of other building deposits, and, probably, the previous levelling of the floor. Thus, the date that was obtained for filling context [69] of pit [71] can be considered a dating of the sequence of events that are involved with the construction of TC1’s house: 230 A.D. – 590 A.D. (calibrated with 95.4% of confidence and corrected for Southern hemisphere from radiocarbon determination LP724: 1640±70). Walls [45] and [46], respectively to the north and east of A1, were built directly upon levelling cut [78] of the terrace (Figure 5.39). Instead, the southern [308] and western walls -this last one with stone work [44] to the north of the entrance towards the neighbouring room and stone work [43] to its south- were built upon the western surface, partly levelled, partly natural, of the prepared terrace [58] (Figure 5.41).

The pit that was dug for the construction of A1, visible in the excavation in cut [78], defined the levelling of the surface [58] upon which the walls of A1 would be built, and the levelling of the surface [183] upon which the 18 In this section we include the results of the stratigraphic excavations we made in TC1 -and in TC2. These followed an open-area strategy and a stratigraphic technique, that is, non-arbitrary. We followed Harris’ general outlines [1991 (1989)] for the methodological formulation of the work because they allow the interpretation of stratigraphic units as potential results of human actions. The record was made according to the recommendations of Spence and his collaborators (1990) though with some adaptations. Among them, we included a three dimensional record of every find and the total sampling of the sediments -that were partly coarse-screened through 2 mm mesh, partly fine-screened through 1 mm mesh, and partly floated in a machine that was designed according to Hillman’s proposal [Renfrew and Bahn 1993 (1991)] and to which a photovoltaic pump was attached. Besides, a complete record of the construction materials -stone blocks-, which were correlatively numbered, was carried out. All the stone, ceramic, bone, metal, vegetal, and other (wood, leather, hair, etc.) items were collected together with their three dimension provenance and contextual assignation, and treated in field for their conditioning and transportation to lab. The excavation and extraction of objects from their sedimentary matrixes were made under agro-industrial sun-screens (80% shade). The effect of such sun-screens was a considerable reduction of the thermal shock while the objects were being uncovered and, since it also reduces wind exposition, it slowed the diminishment of relative humidity. Except for metallic materials, polythene and polypropylene hermetic containers were used in order to maintain the relative humidity. Transportation was made in closed wooden containers. The materials were not washed with water. According to the recommendations for the conservation of archaeological objects (Cronyn 1990), the re-fittings, when their fixation was necessary, were glued with organic solvents-reversible adhesives, and the labelling was done with water-washable ink. The excavation staff was formed by Juan A. Ferreyra, M. Gabriela Granizo, Marcos N. Quesada, M. Fernanda Videla (Archaeology undergraduate students of the National University of Catamarca), and Lic. Daniel D. Delfino (UNCa) in November/December 1993; Leandro D’Amore, Juan A. Ferreyra, Marcos R. Gastaldi, M. Gabriela Granizo, Marcela Leiva, Marcos N. Quesada, Edith O. Valverdi, Miguel Varela, M. Fernanda Videla (UNCa students), and Lic. R. Darío Iturriza (UNCa) in March 1995; Leandro D’Amore, Juan A. Ferreyra, Marcos R. Gastaldi, M. Gabriela Granizo, Marcos N. Quesada (UNCa students), Mariana Chaves, and Susana García (Anthropology undergraduate students of the National University of La Plata), and Lic. R. Darío Iturriza (UNCa) in November/December 1995; by Juan A. Ferreyra, M. Gabriela Granizo, M. Fernanda Videla (UNCa students), and Marcelo Alfaro and María A. Andolfo (UNLP students) in TC1, and Marcos R. Gastaldi, José Vera, Lía Ten, Miguel Varela (UNCa students), and Flavia Leoz (UNLP student) in TC2, with the supervision collaboration of Lic. R. Darío Iturriza in November/December 1996, and Marcos R. Gastaldi and Lía Ten in March 1997. In November 1996, we had the visit and observation of Dr. Felipe Criado Boado (University of Santiago de Compostela) and Dr. Juan Vicent García (Superior Council for Scientific Research, Madrid). The excavations were refilled up to the base level of the walls.

These walls were double, with inside filling made of mud (Figure 5.42). This way, the southern wall was formed by two stone walls disposed in parallel way, one to the north, [308], with its visible face inwards, and one to the south, [309], with its visible face outwards. Between both stone walls, a mud filling completed the structure (stratigraphic units [28] and [4]). On its side, the stone wall that separates A1 from A2, the contiguous room to the west, was also ‘filled’ with mud. Behind the stones of wall [44] there was mud [6], and once in A2, there was another stone wall. Between the jamb [43] that demarcated the entrance between both rooms and wall [41], filling mud [42] was also found. The northern and western walls of A2 were not excavated, but wall falls [102], [103], [104], [105], [146], [147], [148], and [149] presented the same characteristics -sediment with inclusions of pebbles and waste- than the fillings of the walls excavated in A1. Context [101], though not fully excavated, was defined as mud filling of A2’s western wall.

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Figure 5.40: Excavation of stratigraphic unit [63], pit filling [71]. See the high proportion of charcoal and ashes in it. The scale is 0.2 m long. The arrow points out to the north.

accumulation- was left at a higher height in such a way it formed a bench or platform, delimiting the rest of the room through a low stone work [94] formed by a sole row of straight blocks -among them, a fractured mill stone with applications of red pigment in the fracturehorizontally placed with a sole basal row of pebbles of smaller size (Figure 5.44). The platform was continued eastwards through the attachment of another contiguous bench with south-north direction up to the entrance to A1. It is probable that the east-west oriented platform was built first, together with the southern wall of the room and, probably, once the direct entrance to patio A5 was closed; the other platform might have been attached continuing the bench until reaching the entrance to A1. To the east, the stone wall that delimits the bench [94] is directly continued by the stone wall that delimits the room through the west. Regrettably, the northern and eastern walls are pretty poorly conserved in their northern half, so it is not possible to analyze the complex history of construction and reconstruction of this room as a whole. Nonetheless, two factors allow thinking that the badly conserved walls shared the characteristics of the better conserved ones. As part of the wall fall material of such walls, we found blocks with paintings on their plain sides and remains of ash mortar that probably served as plaster joint too.

It is not known with certainty if the northern wall of room A1 was also formed by this kind of structure because it was not excavated (Figure 5.43). Probably, this one and the northern wall of A2 were similar to A2’s eastern wall, whose masonry structures stood at different levels. Since it was, at one time, limit of the room and containment wall of the excavated terrace, this wall had its inner stone wall [46] lower than its external wall [303]. This means that each one of the stone works stood on one of the ‘steps’ of the terrace. Between both parallel stone walls, mud filling [73] and [5] were disposed. A2 was built with greater dimensions, being delimited by the following stone works: [91] -big block that works as south jamb of the entrance between A2 and A1-, [90] eastern masonry to the south of the entrance to A1-, [95] apparently, an obstruction of a direct entrance with patio A5, which presents a different disposition of the blocks and a higher base of masonry-, [92] -south wall between the assumed obstruction [95] of the entrance and stone wall [96]-, [96] -south segment of the western wall, with paintings [70] and [85] in two of its blocks, and ashplastering in some of the joints [97]-, [98] -north extension of the western wall characterized by the horizontal disposition of its blocks, which makes it different from stone walls [96] to the south and [99] to the north, and because of which it is thinkable it might have been added afterwards so to obstruct an entrance that probably came directly from patio A7, already on the ravine of the river-, and [99] -western wall stone work to the north of [98], with paintings [86] and [87] in two of its blocks, and ash-plastering in the joints [100]. The southern and western walls -at least their inner faceswere better conserved than the northern and north-eastern ones, mainly fallen. In the extreme south of room A2, a stripe -afterwards levelled through sediment

The result of the building of the house were two almost rectangular north-south elongated rooms, to which one can enter through a short and narrow hallway on the extreme west of A1’s southern wall or through an entrance between A1 and A2 on the intermediate wall. A2 was substantially bigger than A1, but the construction techniques employed were basically the same. The walls were double-lined stone walls; the stones were chosen so that the plain faces of the boulders of the internal walls 105

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Figure 5.41: Archaeological stratigraphic sequence arranged by radiocarbon chronology and ceramic sequence (taken from D’Amore 2002). The correspondent periods are indicated to the right of the stratigraphic sequence: Period 0 (previous to the construction), 1 (occupation), 2 (inoccupation), 3 (reoccupation), and 4 (inoccupation). The main events related to the occupation are shown too.

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Figure 5.42: Excavation of stratigraphic unit [5], mud filling of TC1A1’s eastern wall. In the foreground, stone wall [46], whose base gave away towards the interior of the room causing the spillage of the filling.

Figure 5.43: Inner face of northern wall [45] of room TC1A1. To the left, picture taken before the excavation of the room started. To the right, elevation drawing once the excavation was finished (horizontal and vertical scales are equivalent).

the extreme of wall [41] that works as jamb. Both sides of the entrance that enters the room by the south are demarcated by jambs, though these are included in their respective walls. This way, a big block that is included in wall [41] works as east jamb (Figure 5.45), and a huge block that is included at the end of wall [308] works as west jamb.

looked inwards. Between both stone walls, a mud that was prepared with a lot of inclusions -among which great quantities of artefacts and fragments of artefacts and refuses of earlier occupations outstand- was disposed. The walls were directly built on the levelled floor of the terrace, without any foundation. The masonry lay upon a sole irregular row of little and flat stones that were disposed, as wedges, underneath the first row of blocks. Stones of different sizes were placed at different heights of the walls; the blocks were selected so that they fitted as tightly as possible in the surface that was left by the previous row, but an ashlar type fitting was not achieve in any case. The blocks did not follow a regular fitting either, though putting each block between two blocks of the previous row was intended. The only clear selection of blocks regarding size is related to the demarcation of entrances. The entrance between both rooms is demarcated by a block of great dimensions [43] added to

The analysis of the southern and western walls of A2 allows adventuring a probable building sequence that would have included, in a first stage, the existence of a direct communication with A5, and probably another one with A7. Next to the southern wall of the room and from one to other entrance, a bench or platform, levelled and contained by a support of remaining sediment of sterile basal floor, extended itself. Probably in this first stage, the joint plaster was used so that the filling sediment of the walls did not drain through the blocks taking 108

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Figure 5.44: Platform in southern sector of TC1A2. Above, seen from the north during the excavation of the room. To the left, detail of the annexe to the platform by the eastern wall of the room once it was already excavated. Notice the reutilization of grinding stones on the construction of this structure.

Figure 5.45: Elevation drawing of western wall of TC1A1 and its continuation towards the south seen from the east. The numbers on vertical rectangular boxes show different masonry strata. Between [44] and [43], there is an entrance that communicates TC1A1 and TC1A2. [43] is a jamb of such entrance; it is separated from the rest of wall [41] by a thin sediment disposed as filling -[42]. [41] includes a great block that serves as western jamb of TC1A1 entrance. [40] seems to lie on this great block. At the same time, the continuation of this wall southwards, [39], lies on the lower horizontal strata of the stratigraphy of TC1A1 entry hallway, for what it could be the result of an event of reconstruction of that part of room TC1A2. Notice that stone wall [41] lies upon little stones disposed as wedges. Horizontal and vertical scales are equivalent.

structural support off and weakening the masonry. It is also probable that the paintings on some of the blocks of the walls were made in this first stage too. The coincidence in the location of the joint plaster and the paintings on the original stone walls and their absence on the probable obstruction stone works of the entrances point out in this direction -though this is not stratigraphically conclusive. In a second stage, both

entrances from A5 and A7 would have been obstructed, and the platform by the wall would have been continued up to the entrance with A1, which remained as the only access since then. Finally, this last access was obstructed with mud and pebble mortar [8], and room A2 was emptied while the occupation of A1 continued already during the early Colonial period. Even though this reconstruction sequence was accurate, it is really difficult 109

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA hypothesis of its meaninglessness.19 What it sure is true is that the practice of building the house included the installation, in the interior of the walls, of refuses that had been produced, by definition, while others inhabited previous households, whether these were located in the same place or not.

to know the time that went through between the first and second building stages. Instead, a third stage, posterior to the obstruction of the only entrance to room A2 and during which this was abandoned while room A1 -to which one could now enter through a hallway from A5was still being occupied, corresponds, judging by the related dating and pottery, iron, and glass objects to the Colonial period.

Maybe the preceding discussion will find support in another fact -or group of actions- related to the building of the house: a series of building deposits. None of them can be explained in functional or causal terms -for what they necessarily imply an extra-functional meaningfulness-, and they might have very likely been a result of the ritual demarcation of the construction of the household.

Anyhow, even though it is not possible to assure that the building sequence of the rooms was contemporary, it sure is clear that, at least during some pretty prolonged period of time -though previous to the Colonial or HispanicIndigenous period-, both rooms were occupied at the same time, serving A1 as entrance room, and A2 as inner room. In A1, there is a final occupation with abundant Ordinary Caspinchango and Tricolour Yocavil ware, Venetian glass beads, and iron. In A2, only a few Ordinary Caspinchango shreds were found. The reoccupation of A1 in early colonial times after a period of abandonment of the architectural structures in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries seems to be the most probable sequence.

As it has been described above, the eastern wall of room A1 was formed by two block stone works: one internal, whose base stood upon the internal level of the room, and one external, whose base stood upon the highest level of a step that was cut on the surface of the levelling of the terrace. Apparently, the lower rows of the internal wall would have been firstly built by nailing little flat stones underneath the basal blocks as wedges (Figures 5.45, 5.46, and 5.49). The western side of such rows was left formed by the selected faces of the boulders looking to the interior of the room. Their eastern face, of nonselected boulders, lay upon the side of the terrace. The following rows, instead, did not lie upon the terrace, which would have been more retrained, leaving space for starting the collocation of the first rows of the second stone-wall and the intermediate mud. But before this, a pit was dug [77] at the extreme north of the step, to the east of the basal rows of wall [46]. In the interior of the pit, there was a globular pot of about 0.4 m of diameter with two vertical handles attached to its everted rim [75] (Figure 5.47). The rest of the pit and the interior of the pot were found filled with sediment [76], which might have been placed together with the pot, though it is likely that it got infiltrated in its interior from the mud of the wall. The external wall of the stone work was partially superposed to the pot, which was largely placed in the intermediate space of the wall (Figure 5.47).

The impression of a strong emphasis on walls and entrances -that is, a strong demarcation of the limits of the inner space of the room- comes clearly out from a general analysis of the house’s architecture. The walls are big and thick; they are double and they are built on stone. The walls do not only contain the inner space; they also contain the mud matrix with the refuses it includes. It is possible, though arguable, that the inclusion of refuses in the mud that fills the walls had passed unnoticed to the builders of the house, which would have just picked up sediment for putting in the walls without knowing that they were carrying such inclusions in it. The great quantity of cultural refuse among the inclusions makes the possibility of them going unnoticed rather difficult, mainly because the filling mud of all the walls contains refuses in big quantities. It is also possible that, even knowing that the mud that was being prepared for filling up the walls included refuses, they did not include them ex profeso, that is, they did not include refuses in the sediment as part of the preparation of the mud but, instead, it was just that these came already included in it when they took it from among the remains of previous occupations. Though hypotheses affirming the direct intentionality of specific acts can hardly be accurately stated, it seems more important, up to here, to point out the following facts: (a) the walls were built including a preparation of mud, stones, and cultural refuse between both parallel stone masonries; (b) the quantity and variety of cultural refuses is remarkable, especially if compared to the groups associated to occupation floors; (c) the same type of mud, stones, and cultural refuse preparation was included in the interior of every wall of both rooms. Hence, the recurrence, frequency, and visibility of the inclusion of cultural refuse in the preparation of the filling mud of the walls makes it sensible to discard the

Approximately in the middle of the eastern wall, before filling it with mud and underneath the place where the external stone work of the wall would be built, a little jar with a face-modelled neck was placed, vertically disposed, with the pot’s mouth downwards (Figure 5.48). Afterwards, the external wall of the masonry [303] began to be built, and the rest of the mud filling -[73] and [5]was deposited. In the upper sectors of such filling [5], abundant shreds of a second globular pot -of very similar shape, fabric, and surface treatment to [75]- were found. These shreds fit between them forming great part of the whole piece, so it is pretty likely that a deposit of a second globular pot, perhaps inside a pit dug on the intermediate space between both stone works too, 19

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Though this does not imply accepting a discursive meaningfulness.

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Figure 5.46: Eastern wall [46] of room TC1A1 where small stones wedging the basal row of the wall can be seen.

Figure 5.47: Above and to the right, deposit of pot [75] in pit [76] (above and to the left) dug inside the wall before the construction of TC1A1’s external stone work. The bar on the location drawing is equivalent to 1 m. To the left, picture of the referred-to vessel; scale regulated every 50 mm.

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Figure 5.48: Little modelled jar found in stratigraphic unit [50], just barely below the base of external stone work of eastern wall of room TC1A1. Above and to the left, location drawing of the find; the bar on the detail is equivalent to 1 m. Above and to the right, picture of the find; the stone block shows the level of the base of the stone wall; the arrow points out to the north; the scale is equivalent to 50 mm. In the centre, front and profile pictures of the little jar. Below, drawings of the little jar from different perspectives; the scale is equivalent to 100 mm.

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Figure 5.49: Elevation drawing of TC1A1’s eastern wall, stone work [46]. Notice the little stones wedging the first row of stone work. The missing stone work fell down.

occurred. Since the intermediate sector of the wall was almost entirely fallen (Figure 5.49), it could not be excavated with the same detail as its northern sector, but everything seems to indicate, nonetheless, that the globular pots in the intermediate space between the walls were two, the same as it was only one the modelled jar underneath the external wall.

respect the external ones by thick walls and narrow entrances (Figures 5.6, 5.45, and 5.50). These features are plausible of being generalized to the rest of the domestic units of Tebenquiche Chico valley, where, every time the entrances could be individualized, they presented a narrow opening. Inside and outside turn out qualitatively different once the walls of the house were built. Everything that happened inside -in terms of production, reproduction, and consumption- points out not only towards the demarcation of a space, but also towards the demarcation of the social unit that inhabits it. It is possible that the globular pots contained food prepared with local agricultural products, maybe chicha or maizebeer (Figure 5.51). And if they were deposited emptied of every immediate content, they sure had been, nonetheless and according to the extent of use that can be observed in their external inferior surfaces, already used for preparing or keeping some product. This leads to relate the deposit of pots to domestic reproduction and consume. The newly born, on its side, leads to the same idea, because it was the possibility of reproduction of the social unit what was deposited under the entrance jamb of the house. The chosen place for his/her final rest sends back to the social limit where death found him/her: entering the domestic unit, for which the delimiting role of the domestic unit that the walls of the house played becomes literal. The modelled jar, instead, is less clearly related to domestic reproduction.

Building deposits do not stop here: there is another type of deposit in A1’s southern wall. Before placing the big rock that served as eastern jamb of the opening that gave access to the room, a deep and narrow pit -0.15 m diameter- filled by a sandy sediment [68] and without any objects in it was dug [72] (Figure 5.50). Above the filling of the pit, a group of stones was disposed forming an almost circular layout, in whose interior the body of a premature born human, of 8.5 to 8.75 lunar months,20 was placed. The body was leaning on its side, with the head towards the south and looking to the west. Without any visible burial goods, the big rock that would have served as jamb was placed standing on the stones that delimited the little tomb without crashing the tiny body. Since the remaining walls of A1 -and the walls of A2- were not excavated, it is not known if these were the only building deposits or if there were and/or there still are other ones underneath the other walls. Anyway, the excavation of pit [71] and its fillings underneath the northern wall of A1 described above (Figure 5.40) should be added to these deposits.

The construction of the walls of the house did not only define a space; it also delimited the domestic unit and the expectant future of its reproduction. The inclusion of great amounts of refuse in the filling mud of the walls refuse that by definition sends back to earlier occupations- relates the new domestic constructions to the past social dwellingness. Thus, the domestic unit became monumentalized, beyond any temporal context of construction, through its spatial demarcation. The inclusion of earlier refuses and the perspective of its great durability, afterwards confirmed by several centuries of occupation, made the house not only a household but first and foremost a monument. Even accepting the likelihood

Apart from the fact that the entire building of the house was itself a highly ritualized process, it was accompanied by particular ritual offerings. There are no doubts about the symbolic meaningfulness of the construction of the walls, marked and remarked by different and successive actions that emphasize their sense of bounding space, containers of the social unit, and continuators of the social time. The inner spaces are left strongly demarcated 20 According to determination of the age of death made by Patricia Bernardi, specialist of the Argentinean Team for Forensic Anthropology, Buenos Aires.

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Figure 5.50: Newly born burial [61] in TC1A1. Above and to the left, cutting of pit [72] below the burial; the scale on the floor is equivalent to 0.2 m. Above and in the centre, location drawing of the burial; the black bar in the detail is equivalent to 0.5 m. Above and to the right, disposition of the skeleton as it was found, in a tomb built with little stones surrounding the body; the scale is equivalent to 0.05 m. In the middle and to the left, TC1A1’s entrance seen from the interior of the room, where the great stone or eastern jamb (the dark rounded stone) that lay upon the stones of the burial can be seen; picture taken before the excavation of the room; the scale is equivalent to 0.2 m. Left bottom, remains of the skeleton of the newly born; the scale is equivalent to 0.1 m. Right bottom, measurements of left femur, interparietal, basilar portion of the occipital, and pelvis for determination of the age (Pictures: P. Bernardi).

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Figure 5.51: Remains of corn cobs found in the excavation of TC1. The five specimens of the upper row were found in stratigraphic unit [30], in the entry hallway, under a dung thin-layer that would have allowed the conservation of organic material.

Figure 5.52: TC1A2 western wall. Above, photograph. Below, elevation drawing. Stratigraphic units [92], [96], [98], and [99] are stone works of the inner wall; [101] is the intermediate sediment; [102] is the external wall. [97] and [100] are remnants of joint plastering respectively applied to [96] and [99]. Pictographies [85] and [70] were made on the sides of both blocks of [96], and pictographies [86] and [87] were made on blocks of [99]. Notice the different disposition of stone works [96] and [99], with wide flat faces towards the interior of the room, respect stone work [98], with superposed wide flat faces. Below and to the left, location drawing.

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Figure 5.53: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [85]. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, grey is equivalent to yellow and black to red.

Figure 5.54: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [70]. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, grey is equivalent to yellow and black to red.

the room, a low stone wall delimits a platform formed by an inner wall that is concentric to the external one (Figure 5.44). In that inner stone wall, a fractured grinding stone painted in red was included. The application of paint corresponds to its recycling as construction material, because the pigment is on the fracture side and not as remain of use for its preparation. Nonetheless, what is particularly remarkable is the significant work, in plastic representations, on the internal walls of A2. This is the object of our following section.

of one or more reconstruction events, the highly visible nature of the house and the insistence with which the divisions between inner and outer spaces, between more or less socially exclusive spaces were materially and ritually marked and remarked, indicates the fundamental significance of the definition of the domestic social units. Besides, and taking into account the altimetrically determining nature of the appropriation of agricultural lands that technically had control of the spot where the irrigation canal arrived to the terrace, the emplacement of the houses in those exact spots speaks clearly about its importance in the demarcation of the restricted accesses to the productive resources. The house did not only define the social unit that inhabited it spatially; it also implied the control over the natural resources it had appropriated. The building of the house as monument is charged with a much more practical than literary sense if thought as landmark in the delimitation of the social restriction to the access to the productive resources.

Domestic Representations There is an additional group of features that characterizes the inner space of TC1’s house, more precisely, its inner room A2. These traits are pictographies made on the inner plain faces of some of the blocks that form the walls of the room. There are four blocks with pictographies on the western wall too (Figures 5.62 and 5.63). These were made with red and yellow pigments. South to north, the following pictographies can be observed:

The inner space -A2- shows other work on the walls, different from that found at A1. In the southern half of 116

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS made in yellow that occupy almost the entire surface of the support reaching some 0.35 m x 0.2 m Some remains of white figures, even more erased, are disposed on different parts of the support, and a big black figure does its part with the yellow motif. As a whole, hypothesizing the meaning of the representation, the pictograph could show a hunting scene: an individual that would have a weapon, represented by the red figure in the foreground, and camelids depicted in yellow and seen from the side, though, differently from the previous ones, jumping or running (Figure 5.59). [93]: Also of difficult interpretation, it is a figure made in red, above which a camelid in yellow, seen from the side and in static attitude, might have probably been depicted. It has some traits in white too. The figures in yellow and red, mainly superposed, turn out into a game of images that at times seems to represent a camelid seen from the side, and at times a frontally seen human face. Nonetheless, since it is not even possible to establish the original position of the support, we must stress the weakness of this interpretation (Figure 5.60).

[85]: It is a much deteriorated composition made with red and yellow pigments, partially superposed. Even though the meaning of the representation is not absolutely clear, it is probable that the illustrations represented one or more camelids in yellow, seen from the side, with the head towards the south, and one or more vertical figures in red. The block on which this pictograph was made has been assigned to stone wall context [96], occupying a space of 0.13 m horizontally and 0.12 m vertically (Figure 5.53). [70]: It is a pictograph made with the same hues of yellow and red than the previous one, on a block that is located directly to the north of that one. It presents a group of superposed figures in yellow, apparently static camelids seen from the side, of different sizes and orientations. This group has a total length of 0.17 m horizontally and 0.16 m vertically. At about 0.05 m southwards -leftwards if the scene is seen frontally- a vertical red figure of 0.05 m height and 0.01 m width can be observed. The block on which this pictograph was made has been assigned to stone wall context [96] (Figure 5.54). [86]: It is a pictograph pretty much deteriorated due to the peeling of the surface of the block that served it as support. It consists on a figure in yellow that seems to represent a static camelid seen from the side, of 0.09 m x 0.09 m, and remains of pigment that are partially superposed to it and cannot be interpreted in any way. The block on which this pictograph was made has been assigned to stone wall context [99], and occupies a total space of 0.26 m horizontally and 0.16 m vertically, though it is highly probable it occupied a bigger surface before the support got peeled (Figure 5.55). [87]: It is a figure of a camelid made with yellow pigment, seen from the side, in a static attitude, of 0.1 m width and 0.15 m height. To the left of this figure, there is another one made with red pigment; regrettably, a thick salty layer that is superposed to this figure does not allow describing it and interpreting it properly. Judging by the visible parts, it could be established that, at least, it is 0.09 m width and 0.12 m height. The block on which this pictograph was made has been assigned to stone wall context [99] (Figure 5.56).

As a whole, the series of pictographies seems to be thematically related. Nevertheless, they do not necessarily form a closed narrative structure, that is, they do not seem to form a sole scene (Figure 5.52; LenssenErz 1992). Camelids made in yellow, seen from the side and in static attitude seem to be a repeated theme, but in [89], the yellow figures might be dynamic camelids. Together with these, the figures made in red seem to tend to vertical and elongated shapes (for example [70]), sometimes with the addition of short perpendicular traces (for example [88], [89], and [93]). The red figures are probably depictions of human individuals, but it is difficult to establish this with certainty. Figures made in white and in black were found only in two cases, and they are not interpretable in any way. The general impression is one of naturalistic representations. Though of difficult interpretation, it is interesting to think about the context of use of these pictographs, unquestionably related to the daily living in the interior of the inner and closed room of the house, perhaps only illuminated by the flames of a bonfire. It is quite probable that other pictographies disappeared from their supports or that these ones were fractured or peeled as a result of the wall falls. Nonetheless, the recovered evidence, formed by four painted blocks in original position and other three found in a wall fall context, allows stating the selective use of pictographs on the internal walls of the room. Room A2 is the inner domestic space of more exclusive access. The existence of these pictographs is related to this space, the most private space of the social unit. The representation of camelids in such restricted space does nothing but reaffirm the relevance of these animals for social and symbolic domestic reproduction.21 It is not possible to interpret the meaning of the other figures that join the camelids, but it sure is possible to say

Other three blocks with pictographs on their plain faces have been found in wall fall context [54], in the northern and north-eastern sectors of room A2 (Figure 5.57). Precisely because they were found within a wall fall context, the original position and orientation of the representations cannot be accurately known. Next, we describe these three pictographies: [88]: It is a figure of 0.08 m x 0.06 m made in a yellowish red colour. It does not denote any particular figure (Figure 5.58). [89]: Even though it is not possible to interpret its meaning confidently, this certainly is one of the most complex figures. A figure in red pigment, of 0.2 m x 0.13 m, in an incomplete pentagonal shape with short outposts on the angles, is joined by a group of less clear figures

21

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Figure 5.55: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [86]. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, grey is equivalent to yellow and black to red.

Figure 5.56: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [87]. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, grey is equivalent to yellow and black to red.

Figure 5.57: Block on which pictography [93] was made, found in wall fall context [54] in TC1A2. The plain face that serves as stand to the pictography was found facing the remnant of the wall.

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Figure 5.58: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [88] on a fallen block of masonry. The orientation of the pictography may not be the same it had when it was originally made on the block while still on the wall. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, black is equivalent to red.

Figure 5.59: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [89] on a fallen block of masonry. The orientation of the pictography may not be the same it had when it was originally made on the block while still on the wall. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, black is equivalent to black, dark grey to red, light grey to yellow, and white with black borders to white.

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Figure 5.60: Picture (left) and trace (right) of pictography [88] on a fallen block of masonry. The orientation of the pictography may not be the same it had when it was originally made on the block while still on the wall. The picture was digitally processed in order to enhance the painting. To the right, black is equivalent to red and grey to yellow.

exclusion of the extra-domestic, the representations of the relationship with camelids.

that camelids have been depicted in relationship with other figures. That is, it is not an abstract and isolated concept of camelid, but one of these animals in relationship to other beings that are different to them. This fact is one of great relevance within the context of the social scenario in which these paintings have been made and used. This means that these camelids-inrelationship have been represented inside the domain of production and reproduction of domestic relationships. There is nothing in the paintings that tells us in an unambiguous way that the represented camelids were appropriated by particular domestic units, and there is no other archaeological evidence that tells us about some kind of restricted access to camelids as it was the case of agricultural resources either. However, it is in the domestic space that implies the most restricted access where camelids-in-relationship have been represented, and, at the same time, these are the least ambiguous representations that were found. Of course that this does not indicate a social appropriation of camelids restricted to the domestic units; we could not even say that they are representations of restricted access. But it can be established that the representations were made and used inside a domestic space of restricted access. Thus, even though the social relationships related to the appropriation of camelids cannot be inferred, we can think about the significance of the domestic space that -as arena in which the relationships of domestication of nature reproduced the relationships of being domesticated- includes, in its boundary of social

The Life in the House: Sediment In analogy with the inner floors of modern houses, the occupation of a household space is usually characterized through the definition of occupation surfaces. For a start, this should be the case of TC1 and the stratigraphic evidence should be able to support such delimitation of surfaces upon which consecutive occupations would have developed. Thin horizontal strata [19], [17], and [7] in A1, and [116], [108], [107], and [106] in A2 could be interpreted as consecutive ‘floors’, each one of which would have corresponded to a particular occupation. But, if other actions are introduced in the consideration of occupation surfaces -actions that will involve not only the inclusion or exclusion of objects but, primarily, the accumulation and extraction of sedimentary matrixes-, the kind of stratigraphic unit we should expect becomes less clear and more complex. Bonfire ashes, sediment adhered to the objects and people that enter the room from outside, filtrations of sediments such as those from the roof and filling mud of the walls, and dust that is brought by the wind are just some of the ways in which, slowly but continuously, sediment gets accumulated on the floor of the room. If there had not been any cleaning or sweeping actions involved, then, the room would have ended up completely covered with the sediment the own occupation brought. Nonetheless, the continuous 120

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS sweeping of the sediment and the collection of objects for their deposition somewhere else produced a continuous accumulation together with a not less continuous extraction of material. Both the accumulation and the extraction of material, even though they obeyed different principles, have been selective. The outcome of this process is a horizontal stratum in which the remains of the consecutive activities that were carried inside the room appear superposed without any spatial or sedimentary mediation, conforming what within archaeology is called a palimpsest.22 Differently from the legacy of the medieval copyists, archaeologists do not count on a superposition pattern that would allow us discriminating between the consecutive occupations of a room. In any case, stratigraphic discriminations are not evident but tentative, partial, and hypothetical.23 Though the limits of the ‘ethnographic’ interpretation of matrixes have been enounced, little has been said regarding the relationships between such matrixes and the inclusions in them -among which there are artefacts, fragments of artefacts, refuses, charcoal, etc. It is a known fact that the transit through sandy surfaces produces some kind of modification in the matrixes and their inclusions, mainly by producing the migration of these last ones in different directions. This way, due to trampling, objects can sink several centimetres, move laterally, and even go up a little (Nielsen 1991; Pintar 1989). This happens in such a way that we should not only take into account the processes through which the stratigraphic matrixes of the room got formed, but also expect that, because of the effect of trampling, there will not always be an absolute concordance between the finds and the stratigraphic units from which they were collected. Hence, and before proceeding with our description and stratigraphic interpretation of the finds, it must be accepted that stratigraphic units are not closed contexts or photographic expressions of the action. If we consider them as matrixes, then they are not strictly units but, instead, assemblages of remains of those units. The limits between superposed stratigraphic units -such as [19], [17], and [7] in A1, and [116], [108], [107], and [106] in A2- are relatively flexible. The retention of inclusions is not, furthermore, absolute. These stratigraphic units are, then, redefined as continuous and flexible assemblages of remains of almost permeable units. Seeing things like this, it might be proper to ask ourselves about the sense of worrying about defining archaeological stratigraphic units instead of following the easier arbitrary metric procedure.

Nevertheless, accepting the fact that the units that form an archaeological stratigraphy are heuristic devices more than objects of the reality that can be directly known (Fotiadis 1992), and recognizing in those ‘flexible assemblages’ human actions of accumulation and extraction of material as those that form such archaeological stratigraphy,24 necessarily implies introducing relevant nuances to the definition of archaeological stratigraphies. This statement has, of course, methodological implications. To begin with, it would not be possible to discriminate contexts of particular occupations. However, as a heuristic device, archaeological stratigraphy still allows delimiting significant patterns -of stratigraphic superposition (accumulation and extraction of matrixes) as well as regarding contexts of objects (inclusions)because the redefinition of the stratigraphic units as accretions does not eliminate their significant nature if they are related to human action. Occupation ‘floors’ were not only formed by accumulations of sediment and elements, cleanings, sweepings, and tramplings but, instead -and mainly in TC1-, through the excavation of pits and their filling. During the excavation of A1, we detected twelve pits, almost all of them located by the walls (Figure 5.61). On its side, in A2, we identified fifty-two pits, of which very few were this time beside the walls, being most of them located towards the centre of the room (Figure 5.62). All the bottoms of the pits cut the sterile floor and had been refilled with sediments that contained a high percentage of ashes and charcoal, for what it was relatively simple to recognize the difference between the filling of the pits and the sterile basal sediment ([58] in A1 and [183] in A2). In some pits, consecutive levels of fillings could be separated -for example, fillings [69], [66], [63] of pit [71] (Figure 5.40). Other pits also cut fillings of previous pits partially, as it is the case of pit [37c], which cuts filling [26b] of pit [37b] (Figure 5.63). In other cases, pits go completely through the fillings of previous pits, as it is the case of pit [82] inside filling [19a] of pit [32] (Figure 5.41). In these cases, it was really hard and almost impossible to differentiate both fillings, mainly because the filling sediment of the pits was terribly thin and friable, it did not have an ordered disposition, and the inclusions were irregularly placed.25 It is probable, then, that the recorded pits and their fillings actually constitute a minimum of pits and fillings. The walls of the pits, when it was possible to differentiate them, were steep and clean, for what it might seem that each pit was immediately filled up with sediment and refuses so to avoid the walls to fall apart. Thus, it can be assumed that each one of the discriminated fillings corresponds to a particular episode of digging and filling of a pit. But it

22 This metaphor refers to parchment objects that used to be used once and again during the Middle Ages for writing on them. These parchments were subjected to whitening treatments each time they were going to be used again, but this camouflage ended up disappearing leaving a chaotic superposition of writings. In the case of the floors, there would not have been a camouflage of previous writings through some kind of additive, but a more or less selective extraction and accumulation of part of the matrix through cleaning and sweeping actions would have taken place. 23 Though it is probable that, through a detailed analysis of the patterns of spatial distribution of the finds, their re-fitting relationships, and our field observations, a high level of situations -though stratigraphically confusing in the beginning- might be constructed.

24

Which led to a specific and different theoretical definition of geologic stratigraphy (Harris 1991 [1989]). 25 Even when it seemed that some pattern of disposition of inclusions and ashes spots could be followed, when softly cleaning with the brush, such pattern became impossible just a few centimetres further.

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Figure 5.61: Pits in room TC1A1. Above, picture taken from the stairs at the northern corner of the room during the excavation of the pits. Below, elevation drawing of all the excavated pits.

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Figure 5.62: Picture of the surface of room TC1A2’s sterile stratum taken from the north. Notice the large amount of pits that used to cut such stratum.

Figure 5.63: West side of test pit made in TC1A1. There are two pits: to the left, [37c] with its filling [27], to the right, [37b] with its filling [26b]. Pit [37c] is later than filling [26b] of pit [37b]. The scale is equivalent to 0.25 m.

should also be assumed that it is highly probable that other pits with their respective fillings were completely removed by these posterior diggings of pits without even leaving a trace. These assumed pits may be, hence, absolutely absent in the stratigraphic record, but it can nonetheless be stated that, if they had existed, they would have been placed following the same spatial disposition, they would have formed part of the same spatial pattern. Since it is also probable that the sweeping of the floor cut or beheaded the upper parts of some pits, it should also be considered that their stratigraphic location might have

been lost (Figure 5.64). This is particularly relevant because it is through the stratigraphic location of the break of slope at the top that the pit can be adequately related in the stratigraphic matrix, meaning, that only through the identification of the surface upon which the pit began to be dug can the relationships of the pit and its filling/s with the rest of the stratigraphic sequence be established. In TC1, it is presumable that the sweeping of the surface of the floor, and even its trampling, might have produced the lateral or vertical movement of the upper centimetres of the floor, that is, of the surface from 123

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Figure 5.64: Interpretation scheme of the possible effects of sweeping and trampling on the beheading of the break of slope at the top of the pits. Pit b cuts the filling of pit a, and, since there is a significant vertical distance between them, their mutual stratigraphic relationship can be confidently established. Pits b and c did not cut each other, and the beheading of the break of slope at their tops impedes establishing their stratigraphic sequence. The clear-cut ends that can be seen between the fillings of the pits and the horizontal sterile basal stratum can be differentiated from the blurred ends between the fillings of the pits and the horizontal strata that were accumulated during the occupation in all three cases. The inclusions on the fillings of the pits can be confidently assigned to them in the clear-cut delimited parts; by the blurred ends, instead, contextual assignations become confusing, and to reconstruct them in the lab through the comparative analysis of the distributions of the finds, the descriptions of the stratigraphic units, and the locations of the basal portions of the pits is only possible in some cases.

which a pit could have been dug and filled.26 Besides, the consecutive episodes of digging and filling of pits, usually disturbing previous fillings, have had to produce more than one mixture or contamination of the ‘new’ matrix with earlier inclusions. Hence, more than one evidence of mixture should be expected in the material that is included in the pits and, therefore, the critical discussion on stratigraphic theory dedicated to floors some paragraphs above can be applied to pits too. Pits are affected by the same processes but, differently from floors, they are discontinuous because once the pit has been filled, it remains relatively encapsulated. The stratigraphy of pit fillings is defined, then, as selectively flexible discontinuous remains of almost impermeable units.

walls, it does not seem that pits remained opened for a very long time. It would seem that the meaning of pits was related to the same action of digging them and filling them up. Inside them, pits have pottery shreds, lithics, beads, red and yellow pigments, and complete and fragmented camelid bones, some of them with red pigment applications (Figure 5.65 and Table 5.1). These objects are included in very ashy and carbonaceous matrixes. And, even though a detailed analysis of the content of pits exceeds the aims of this work, the general impression is that matrixes and inclusions keep certain similarity in all the different fillings.27 Almost all the pits seem to have been dug in the floor following the pattern of the inner space of the room: in A1, they tend to be by the walls, sometimes even undermining their bases; in A2, they tend to be in the centre of the room, even superposing one to another. The entire surface that is beside the walls of A1, except for two short segments that are related to the entrances to A5 and A2, was cut by pits. The entire surface of the floor of A2 that was away from the walls, including the communication area with A1, was cut by pits. It seems that there is a long term pattern of digging and filling up of pits with bonfire ashes, food and artefact refuses, and decoration items. Interpreting such pattern in all its complexity is hard, but the tendency to dig pits towards the centre of A2 -the inner room-, and the tendency to dig them towards the walls in A1 -the outer room- is rather noticeable. In some pits there are also evidences of bonfires that would have been lighted long enough so to alter the inferior sediment.

It is precisely the discontinuous nature of these contexts what evidences a different temporality than the one seen for the production of floors. We do not know what these pits might have served for, and, in fact, we cannot even assume they have actually served for a particular purpose either. Given the previously commented characteristics of 26

In such cases, whose existence -better than whose absence- is necessary to assume, the exact stratigraphic location of the pits and their fillings turns out a task that can only be approximated by specific and very detailed investigations that need to include re-fitting relationships and analyses regarding the superposition of the finds. There has been an advance in such direction, but there still is a lot to be done. In great part, the success of such analyses on the exact stratigraphic location of a pit and its filling/s depends on the identification of continuity in the superposition patterns of the finds, on the coexistence of such patterns with field records of ashes spots, and on the verification of vertical refitting relationships inside the filling of the pit and horizontal ones between such filling and the surface from which it was cut. The location of the pits by the walls in room A1, since it is there where fillings have less contact between each other, has allowed a greater advance in this sense. In room A2, on the contrary, since the pits tend to be grouped towards the centre of the room, sharing the same space, the fillings appear superposed and several of them contact each other making the already hard task of discriminating particular pits and fillings even harder.

27 Maybe the only case that goes away from the general pattern is precisely pit [71], which is entirely located under the northern wall of A1 and contained filling deposits that were horizontally disposed and presented high percentages of charcoal. Differently from the other inner pits, which would have been dug throughout the inhabitation of the house, this pit would have formed part of its building.

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Figure 5.65: Finds in pit fillings. Above, blade fragment of andesite spade blade with red ochre application in basal portion of filling [118] of pit [142]. Below, broken base of ware -4- pot in basal portion of filling [180] of pit [184]. Both stratigraphic units belong to room TC1A2.

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127

Table 5.1: Finds of TC1 with ochre applications.

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128

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS The central space of A1 and a corridor that is related to the entrances are the only sectors that were not cut by these consecutive pits; within the central space, evidences of a great bonfire that altered the compression and coloration of the underlying sediment were found. Beside this bonfire, two little pits of little depth, one of them delimited by vertically disposed andesite slabs, might have been, though without any evidence of this being so except for their favourable disposition, traces of wooden columns that would have held the roof or some other auxiliary cooking device for holding pots over the flames. In A2, the central pits were the ones that presented clearer evidences of firing. Other pits that were not located centrally respect their respective rooms presented evidences of combustion too, but these were weaker than the ones of the central areas. Thus, even though it does not seem that a unique spatial relationship between bonfires and pits can be inferred -in fact, the central and bigger bonfire in A1 was not in a pit-, it could be thought that the activities related to the digging and filling up of pits, at least in some cases, included the use of fire.

convenient to offer a second group of evidences of actions so to reinforce them. The experience of living in the house was not only accumulated in cuts and fillings in the floors. The experience of living in the house was also accumulated in the same walls, true deposits of the refuses of domestic life. Even though the inner walls of the room showed the plainer sides of the blocks that had been selected for their construction, the trammel between the stone layouts was really far away from being perfect, leaving, thus, many interstices between them. There, between the stones of the walls and among many other objects, fragments of andesite spade blades (Figure 5.66) (for example, in wall falls [3], [10], [15], [24], and [54]), camelid phalanxes (wall falls [13], [14], and [15]), and spindles with wool or threads around them (Figures 7.11 and 7.17) (wall fall [3], by the southern wall) were found. The wall falls of the inner walls include great number of objects, many of which probably got accumulated there as they were gradually inserted in the holes. Maybe some artefacts were afterwards taken out and reused, the walls serving then as a huge inner cupboard; maybe some of these objects were left forgotten in there, many of them not having any other remnant utility beyond covering the interior of the room with the ‘residual history’ of the domestic daily practices related to the occupation of the house.

Anyway, the recurring quantity and quality of the same kinds of filling and location of pits turns them into features that become inseparable from the conceptualization of the room as household. The activity of digging and filling up pits beside the walls or away from them certainly was, during almost the entire period of occupation of the room, an inseparable aspect of the experience of living in that house. This does not imply that it was a daily activity, but it is probable that it had some kind of periodicity, maybe seasonal or related to some kind of ritual event. In any case, it surely is a meaningful pattern. Even when the only purpose of digging pits was getting rid of refuses, the recurrence in space and time of such a way of depositing rubbish28 is certainly surprising. Whether the groups of items that were deposited in the fillings of the pits were considered as refuse or not, they were definitely part of meaningful actions related to the experience of inhabiting the inner space of the house. Their location reinforced the boundaries of the domestic space, because for digging pits and filling them up, the inhabitants of the house went towards the walls in the outer room, and far away from them in the inner room. Even though the integrity and integration of each one of the deposits inside the pits of both rooms cannot be established, it is clear that they answer to a ‘way of getting things done’, to habitual patterns related to the inhabitation of the inner space of the house. Pits are evidence of a rhythmic temporality of a significant action that is materially and symbolically related to domestic space and time. This way, the house that had been built as monument, was lived as sediment.

Category Haft Blade Undifferentiated Flake Blade without edge Blade+haft Spade blade

Quantity 130,0 320,0 147,0 1919,0 250,0 12,0 1,0 Total

Weight(gr.) 24061,2 37482,3 16768,4 4815,4 19010,3 3755,3 635,5 106528,4

Table 5.2: Frequency of find and weight (in grams) per each category of fragment of andesite spade blade.

Fragments of andesite spade blades were specially recovered in great quantities in wall fall contexts (Figure 5.66). Through the analysis of the quantity of fragments that came form different parts of spade blades, it was seen that these different parts were deposited in the walls in proportions that are different to the ones that full blades show. Upon the basis of the measurement of a group of 12 complete spade blades, we have been able to see that the andesite mass that was necessary for blade elements is, with a standard deviation of 0.4, 6.05 times bigger than the andesite mass that was used in haft elements. On the other hand, all the fragments of shovel leafs that were recovered from the excavation of TC1 -which are not assignable to the portion of the haft element, that is, which correspond, hence and with more or less certainty, to the blade element portion- are equivalent to 3.4 times the quantity of andesite mass that had been used on the recovered haft elements (Table 5.2 and Figure 5.67).

This last statement, even though it looks metaphoric, has several theoretical implications -which we have already partially commented. Nonetheless, it would also be 28 That we may talk of rubbish does not imply these were garbage dumps (Needham and Spence 1997).

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Figure 5.66: Fragments of andesite spade blades found in the excavation of TC1. Haft element fragments are shown in the upper row, and blade element fragments are shown in the lower row. Grey corresponds to ochre application.

Figure 5.67: Representation of the proportion of fragments of blade and haft elements indicating the difference between the proportion expected in contexts of use and the proportion found in TC1’s inner domestic context.

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.69: Remains of roof [4] fallen in TC2A3. Different kinds of refuses can be observed inserted between the straws of the roof. The straw bundles are held by a mesh of twigs of local lejía and tramontana shrubs. This roof corresponds to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries A.D.

Figure 5.68: Fracture pattern of spade blades. Some fragments of haft element of andesite spade blades from the excavation of TC1 can be seen. They represent the main fracture pattern for spade blades, in the limit between haft and blade elements. The overabundance of haft elements over blade elements in TC1’s inner domestic context probably obeys to the fact that maybe haft elements were brought inside the house while still tied to their poles.

domestic space: such sedimentation incorporated them materially to the monument. The same kind of daily accumulation might have occurred in the roofs. Some roof fall contexts allow inferring that roofs were built by placing a layer of clayey sediment over another one of straws, this last one previously placed over little shrub branches that were held by longer pieces of wood resembling beams. It is known that the pre-Hispanic roofs of the Argentinean Northwest and the Andean area in general were built using Cereus cactus wood for the beams. Currently, straws are disposed over canes; when canes are not available, a local reed called badre -the Ephedraceae Neosparton ephedroides Griseb- is used. The old roof of the ancient post,30 without canes or badre reed, had lejía branches (Baccharis incarum Wedd.) instead, a bush-like Compositae that grows in the valley, hobbled between each other and placed over Cereus cactus beams. In a context that was excavated in TC2 and corresponded to a roof that had fallen on the floor of the room and was related to the Hispanic-Indigenous period, straws lay on lejía and other local shrub branches such as the tramontana or pingo-pingo Ephedraceae (Ephedra sp.) (Figure 5.87).

Thus, and over the basis of the recovered haft element fragments, only a little more than half of the expected blade element fragments were found. Besides, the study of the fractures allows stating that these spades were broken due to transversal tensions that would have probably been generated because they were used while being hafted, which would have generated a fracture pattern precisely in the same limit between haft and blade elements (Figure 5.68). Presumably, the contexts of use and fracture of spades were the opening and closing of irrigation canals and other agricultural works.29 The difference between the expected and actual proportions of blade element fragments found in relationship with the recorded haft elements indicates that these were incorporated to the inner domestic space twice as frequently as blade element fragments. This, together with the analysis of the fracture pattern, suggests that there probably was a practice of reutilization of the wooden hafts of the spades, which might mean that the still hafted fragments were transported from the contexts of use of the spades into the house. The daily use of these artefacts of appropriation and production of resources was very likely carried outside the habitational rooms, maybe in the fields, agricultural terraces, and canals of the domestic compound. Nonetheless, when the spade blades broke, the fragments were deposited inside the house, where, in pit filling contexts, we only found one complete spade blade versus 2,783 fragments, mostly found in stone wall and wall fall contexts. Hence, walls were a context of sedimentation of fragments of artefacts of domestic appropriation, perhaps reaffirming the relationship between daily productive practice in the outer domestic space and sedimentation in the inner

Two different levels of accumulation can be distinguished in roofs. The lower level accumulates from below, and corresponds to the straw bundles that can be seen from the interior of the room. Between the tight straws, a great quantity of objects is gradually inserted. Sometimes, as in the case of the walls, the roofs resemble cupboards, and these objects will be reutilized; other times they are just left there. The early mentioned roof of TC2 contained great quantities of objects between the straws. A roof that is currently in use in Laguna Blanca (Belén) has also been described, recording in it several hundreds of

29 Though it is probable that andesite spade blades were also used for digging pits inside the habitational rooms and for other construction related works, the quantity of fragments recovered from inner domestic contexts implies a more habitual context of use.

30 Nowadays reconditioned as Archaeological Camp “Dr. Pedro Krapovickas” in memory of who occupied it four decades before the team directed by the author did and, being his professor, encouraged him with the archaeology of Tebenquiche valley.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA objects inserted between the straws (Delfino 1994).31 On its side, the upper level, which accumulates from above, is formed by mud applications prepared with clayey sediments and inclusions of broken straws and stones. Among these inclusions, there usually is some amount of refuse -among them, pottery shreds, bone fragments, and lithics. Some of these objects are left in the exterior surface of the roof; exposed to the sun and the wind, they erode and sometimes slide towards the sides. Other ones remain included in the matrix of the mud ‘torta’ until the erosion of this one exposes them to the surface; sometimes, they are covered again by a new layer of ‘torta’ in order to maintain the roof. If the roofs are periodically maintained through rethatching, the inferior structural levels reach longer durations. Sometimes, some straws are changed or some bundles are added so to make the roof more impermeable. Roofs are hardly ever dismantled, not even when one of the wooden tie beams is broken; the piece of wood is changed or repaired maintaining the rest of the roof. Certainly that sooner or later roofs are completely dismantled and, in that case, the objects that are included in there get lost. We do not know how long the accumulations of the roofs can last, but it is in collapse contexts assignable to the fall of roofs where certain kind of objects that are plausible of being related to the levels of accumulation from below -for example, camelid mandibles in [3]- and from above really eroded pottery shreds- can be found.

demarcation of its space. This way, as it has been explained above, the house that was built as monument, was lived as sediment. The space of domesticity was left condensed in particular -building-, cyclical -seasonal or life-cycle rituals-, and continuous -daily progression of the accumulation- times. Monument and sediment, as paradigmatic expressions of two related ways of nontextual -or linguistic, or discoursive- meaning of time and space, were both, materially and symbolically, continent and content of the domestic. Materially, as relationship of relationships or meta-pattern, domesticity defined and was defined by the social unit. The construction of the society had its arena in the interior of the house. In its exterior, an extension of the domestic space was going to be built through the creation of the agricultural landscape of the oasis. Chronology of the House Fourteen radiocarbon dates have been obtained for different stratigraphic units excavated in TC1’s house (Table 5.3 and Figure 5.70). The dates and their contextual association have been critically analyzed, including the different potential errors within the chronological interpretation (Bayliss and Orton 1994; Bowman 1994; Buck, Christen, Kenworthy, and Litton 1994; Buck, Litton, and Scott 1994; Ziólkowsky 1997).32 32 The charcoal fragments that were sent to the laboratories came from shrub wood in all these cases. Nonetheless, since a taxonomic determination so to calibrate the isotope fractioning was not possible in any of them, no corrections are included to that extent. During the excavation, each charcoal fragment or cluster of contiguous fragments was collected as sample, recording its three-dimensional location and contextual association. Due to the fact that very few of the samples obtained this way were actually above the minimum accepted by the laboratorist -and by his suggestion (Aníbal Figini, personal communication, 1996)-, six out of the fourteen samples that had been sent for dating (LP-745, LP-795, LP-774, LP-763, LP-741, and LP-780) came out as combinations of more than one sample; samples obtained during the excavation of the same stratigraphic unit and at a very short distance from each other were combined so to reach that minimum. However, of course it cannot be asserted that all the charcoal that forms each one of those six samples comes from the same wood -a fact that, though it cannot be insured either, can be affirmed at least as possibility for the other eight samples. Since laboratories imply an inherent systematic bias, a second group of possible error sources is related to the differences between them. This is hardly a problem that could actually be controlled, though, nonetheless, the wide range of obtained dates does not seem to indicate a particular directional bias either. It is known, besides, that laboratories in general -and LaTyR and Beta Analytic in particular- make comparative controls between them in order to detect and weigh possible bias (Bowman 1994; Figini 1993). In the case of LaTyR, repeating twenty times the calibrations implies that, instead of being weighed by the laboratory, the different potential sources of error become included. A third group of possible error sources regards the interpretation of the determinations. Even though there are methods for interpreting radiocarbon dates in terms of solar years, there is not only one calibration curve and, furthermore, there are several methods for calibrating the radiocarbon determination once the curve has been chosen (Bowman 1994). With the purpose of making the determinations comparable, it was decided to calibrate them following the dendrochronological curve interpolation method proposed by Stuiver and Kra, Radiocarbon Laboratory, Oxford University, using their calibration software OxCal 2. From the analysis of known ages samples that came from South Africa, a subtle difference on the radiocarbon concentration of the Southern hemisphere atmosphere was noticed, but in front of the disparity of opinions regarding the potential

Walls and roofs -maybe these better than those- were surfaces where objects were daily accumulated, deposited from aside or from below. Occupation surfaces, repeatedly swept and cleaned, were the surfaces over which the daily living of the domestic unit was carried. These were left delimited by a group of deposit spaces: pits and their fillings below, walls and objects between the stones to the sides, roofs and elements inserted between straws above. This way, the domestic space was left encapsulated in space and time, contained by a ‘shell of daily construction’ that inevitably sent back to previous times. To dig a pit almost in the same way as it had been done before, to fill it up similarly, to put or insert an object in the walls or in the roof in a little hole still not occupied by a previously placed object, were all individual events that were repeated throughout a very long period of time. And, given the long history of occupation of the house and the long trajectory of the pattern of these deposits -more clearly evidenced in the pits and fillings of both rooms-, the past to which this slow sedimentation referred to might have only partially been reached by memory. Most of the times, we are dealing with gestures that refer to a non-lived past, to a past that goes beyond the existence of the actual social unit and to which they become related through the visible presence of the same kind of sedimentations. The daily and/or periodic sedimentation of the experience of the domestic life was produced as an inner delimitation and 31

An excellent ethnography on Andean traditional roofs can be found in Gose (1991).

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS If the different potentially intervenient imprecision factors might have acted independently in each date and might have behaved in different ways, the total effect of their accretion could be the artificial dispersion of the range of dates. It could be the case, then, that a particular period of occupation of the house appeared expressed itself in the dates as up to 550 years longer than what it actually was33 and even with echeloned dates. Since the

influence of this factor, it was decided, by specialized suggestion, to omit the correction of 30 to 40 years (Figini 1993, 1999; Ziólkowski 1997). In fourth place, regarding the three LaTyR determinations (LP764, LP-745, and LP-741), it was informed that “since the amount of carbon that was found in the sample is smaller than the normal, the exactness and precision of the obtained radiocarbon data must be used with precaution”. Thus, it is possible that the relative error is higher in these three cases. A fifth aspect that should be taken into account is where each date crosses the calibration curve. This way, LP-724 crosses the curve in a place of valleys and peaks, for what the distribution with 68.2 per cent of confidence cuts the curve three times, with a total of 210 years between the three segments, and with a difference between the most ancient and the most recent date of 270 years instead of the expectable 140 according to its error, and of 360 years instead of 280 if it is calibrated with 95.4 per cent of confidence. With 68.2 per cent of confidence, LP-764 cuts the curve twice, with an accretion of 140 years, and a maximum difference of 190 years instead of the expectable 120 according to a typical deviation; with a confidence of 95.4 per cent, the interval is of 230 instead of 240 years. The effect of the calibration according to the steep or flat nature of the piece of curve where the determinations with different confidence intervals cross is not the same for all the dates. We can see, then, that only in two cases (LP-745 and LP-774) the intervals are actually bigger in the normal distributions of the radiocarbon determinations than in their calibrations with 68.2 per cent of confidence (because, as shown, LP-745 and LP-774 cross the curve in its steep parts). In all the other cases, maintaining the level of confidence, the effect of the calibration has been the increase, though in different magnitudes, of the distribution ranges. Hence, taking into consideration all the analyzed factors, it will be more convenient to consider the temporal segments of the dendrochronological calibrations of the radiocarbon determinations with a 95.4 per cent of confidence with the necessary precautions regarding possible interpretations of contemporaneity. A whole second group of error sources has to do with the relationship between each date and the stratigraphic unit from which the dated sample was taken. A first issue regards what has been called “ancient wood problem” (Schiffer 1987). This problem is particularly relevant because wood, in the Puna environment, remains conserved for a really long time before its decomposition. Thus, it is expectable that dry wood was collected so to be incorporated to bonfires inside the rooms. Regrettably, there are no estimations regarding the maximum period of time during which a piece of wood can keep its utility as fuel in the Puna, and, furthermore, this will surely depend on more than one factor -among them, the kind of wood, the place of deposition, the proximity to a marsh, the quantity of sunlight hours, etc. We know, thanks to Weisser’s finds, that wooden stakes lasted some 300 years inside underground burial chambers (in the second burial he excavated in Tebenquiche Chico he found these artefacts within a HispanicIndigenous context). In the excavations at TC2, a wooden stake was found placed between the stones of a wall and, again, the last occupation of that room belonged to a Hispanic-Indigenous context too. In TC1, meanwhile, a fragment of a spindle was found in a wall fall context. Since it is expectable that the wood that was used as fuel was extracted from local vegetation and the wood that was used for manufacturing certain artefacts was some kind of harder wood obtained from the Argentinean North-Western valleys or the Atacama oases, the kind of woods used in these cases are not known yet. Remains of wood that was pretty likely local were found in wall fall contexts, probably coming from roof structures. In these cases, it is also possible to assume an age of around 300 years. We do not know how long wood could last in conditions of greater exposition, without the protection that the mentioned cases would have had thanks to burial chambers, stones in the walls, or straw bundles in the roofs. Having said all this, the “long life wood problem”, which has to do with the really long life of many of the species that were used as fuel, should be added to the problem of the ancient wood. Since within the Puna environment there are not autochthonous tree-like species, shrubs are used instead. We do not know how long Puna shrubs take to lignify their stems, and on the other hand not every species has the same performance as fuel. Some species of high caloric performance, such as the Adesmia leguminous -among which, within the area, we can find A. horrida, A. erinacea, and A. caespitose-, might live for more than a century (Humberto Lagiglia, personal communication, August 1995). Summing up, charcoal dates should not lead to an automatic identity between the informed date and

the age of the stratigraphic unit because this would imply assuming a contemporaneity between the ‘death’ of the lignified tissue, or the ring of growth, and its deposition in the stratigraphic unit once it was charred. It is known that between both facts, there might be two things working as mediations: - the shrub’s lasting period while it is alive, expressed in its longevity (1) - the shrub’s lasting period once it is dead, expressed in the natural conservation of the wood (c) Both periods can last 0 to p years, being p the addition of 1 and c, 1 of not less than 100 years in the case of some shrubs, and c of about 300 years in conditions of ‘protecting’ deposition environment and smaller if placed in an exposed environment. Therefore, p would be of 400 years. p≡l+c where p is the maximum error estimated for the problem of wood, being 0 the minimum; l is the shrub’s estimated longevity; and c is the estimated period of conservation in open air. It could be expected, then, that the dates that were obtained out of the charcoal of local shrubs wood were between 0 and 400 years older than the stratigraphic units where they were deposited, though a more realistic estimation would probably be between 0 and 200 (taking into account the differences between the deposition environments of the wood). The great amplitude of this range of variation is strictly dependent on two interrelated factors: - the very low primary productivity of the Puna environment, which leads to a very slow growing and lignification of the shrubs, and - the extreme dryness of the environment, which considerably delays the decomposition of the wood. These factors surely add some imprecision to the temporal assignations of the stratigraphic units, but another aspect of the chronology that is more specifically related to stratigraphy still must be argued. Trying to assign the date that was obtained through a fleck of charcoal to a stratigraphic unit implies assumptions regarding the relationships between matrixes and inclusions and assumptions regarding the integrity of such matrixes. Starting by this last issue, when interpreting the stratigraphy in relationship to the radiocarbon chronology, we should add to the stratigraphic characteristics of pit fillings and to the fact that, as it was exposed above, we cannot know how many episodes of digging and filling up of pits were necessary to form the structures of pits and fillings recorded in the archaeological excavation (with the added difficulty of knowing that each digging episode might have produced the lost of morphologically different material -that is, one of bigger or smaller diameter and more or less depth-, and that the fillings of the consecutive pits could not always be discriminated), an additional quota of precaution that should be based on the principle of semipermeability and flexibility of the matrixes. Trampling episodes produced by later occupations, walls and roof falls that might have occurred once the room was left unoccupied, or any of these episodes that might have happened during the archaeological excavation, might have produced movements of elements. Pintar made several experiments to that extent; copying sandy matrixes of Puna environment, she estimated the migration due to trampling of stone items covered with sand between 43 mm upwards and 32 mm downwards (Pintar 1989). Without the pretension of mechanically applying these results to TC, it is nonetheless relevant to mention that these are, in general, coincident with other similar experiments. In the case under analysis, given the presence of wall falls of big and heavy blocks over the interior of the room, the possibility of greater movements must be assumed. 33 p plus the standard deviation of the date. See note 33.

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Denomination

Provenance

Calibrated AD 68,2% 350AD (0.01) 360AD 380AD (0.99) 550AD

Dates B.P. 1610±70

Calibrated AD 95,4% 250AD (0.07) 300AD 320AD (0.93) 600AD

LP-724

[63].15

LP-764

[26].2

1460±60

540AD (1.00) 650 AD

440AD (1.00) 670AD

LP-745

[19].92/97/89

1430±60

560AD (1.00) 660AD

450AD (1.00) 690AD

LP-774

[19].76/77

1360±60

550AD (1.00) 790AD

LP-795

[19].75/93/99

1350±80

610AD (0.95) 720AD 740AD (0.05) 760AD 610AD (1.00) 770AD

LP-763

[19].89/93

1240±50

LP-741

1130±70

LP-945

[79].1/2/3/4/6/7/8/9 /10 [174].4

LP-964

[171].7

LP-739

550AD (1.00) 880AD

680AD (0.94) 820AD 840AD (0.06) 860AD 810AD (1.00) 990AD

670AD (1.00) 890AD 710AD (1.00) 1030AD

1130±90

790AD (1.00) 990AD

670AD (1.00) 1040AD

1080±60

890AD (1.00) 1000AD

790AD (1.00) 1040AD

[17].8

1050±45

880AD (1.00) 1040AD

LP-967

[160].7

960±60

900AD (0.07) 910AD 950AD (0.93) 1020AD 1010AD (1.00) 1160AD

Beta-44660

Test pit level 8

900±70

1030AD (1.00) 1190AD

1010AD (1.00) 1260AD

LP-780

[27].6/7/10/11/12

880±60

1040AD (1.00) 1220AD

1020AD (1.00) 1260AD

LP-736

[19].9

270±50

1510AD (0.60) 1600AD 1620AD (0.38) 1670AD 1780AD (0.02) 1790AD

1470AD (0.87) 1680AD 1740AD (0.13) 1800AD

970AD (1.00) 1220AD

Table 5.3: Radiocarbon dates for TC1. Denomination of the radiocarbon date, denomination of the sample and stratigraphic unit from which it was taken from, average in radiocarbon years obtained before 1950, standard deviation, and calibrations in solar years with confidence intervals of 68.2 per cent and 95.4 per cent are detailed. LP stands for Laboratorio de Tritio y Radiocarbono de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, informed by A. Figini, and Beta stands for Beta Analytic Inc., Coral Gables, informed by M. Tammers.

were related to the immediately previous moment to the building of the room -and, hence, wall [45]-34 (Figure 5.40). Though both events can be considered contemporary in terms of the radiocarbon chronology that is, with a 95.4 per cent of confidence, between 250

panorama that is offered by the whole of the fourteenth dates obtained for TC1 is one of a long period of occupation torn by the consecutive dates, we should ask ourselves if the pattern of TC1 is not actually an outcome of some addition of error sources. With this, we are trying to state that the pattern of calibrated radiocarbon dates is not enough, by itself, to interpret the long and relatively continuous period of occupation of TC1. In order to do this, it is necessary to compare the pattern of dates to the chronological structure of the occupations and to the pottery contextually associated to them.

34

The hypothesis of contemporaneity implies that the pit, its fillings, and the wall are just some events among many others, or that they form part of a sequence of actions of a same episode. The hypothesis of the pit preceding the wall implies, instead, that the relationship between pit [71] and its fillings and wall [45] is fortuitous -what seems rather unbelievable in front of the consistent pattern of location of pits towards the interior of the room-, or dependent on the existence of a wall that should have had to be previous to the one archaeologically recorded, and, though perhaps made of some other material, located more or less in the same place. No evidence of this last possibility was recorded and, even though it cannot be fully discarded, it introduces other nondocumented elements for what, hence, it is not convenient to take it into account right now. On the other hand, the presence of three successive levels of filling in the interior of pit [71] seems to support the need of a different interpretation for this one in opposition to the other pits dug inside the house, pits that had more or less homogeneous fillings and no noticeable inner stratification. Thus, since it presents a spatial location that is coincident to the general pattern of pits and to the disposition of wall [45], since it is stratigraphically located under such wall, and since its inner fillings [66], [69], and [63] present a clear stratification, an interpretation according to which the dated charcoal sample would have been deposited as part of an action that was immediately previous to the building of the house becomes more likely. This interpretation implies a temporal and spatial connection between two events: the excavation and filling up of the pit (with, at least, three levels of filling), and the building of the wall. The presence of charcoal and burnt bones and the characteristics of underlying sediment [66] suggest the possibility of fire having been lit inside this pit.

TPQ: From a stratigraphic perspective, the excavation and filling up of a pit before the building of a wall provides a terminus post quem for the building of a room. Date LP-724 is, besides, the oldest date of the sequence, fact that coincides with its TPQ nature. We have already pointed out that filling [63] (from which we took the charcoal for date LP-724), together with underlying contexts [66] and [69] -the three fillings of pit [71]-, is previous to the construction of wall [45]. In fact, and supporting this hypothesis, pit [71] and its fillings are, strictly speaking, under the wall. The comparison between the location of the mentioned pit and the location of the posterior wall -and the comparison of that one with the general pattern of pits of room TC1A1- makes it even more likely that the digging and filling up of such pit

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.70: Combined graphic of the calibrations of C14 dates of TC1 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Notice the continuity between the first thirteen dates and the hiatus between LP-780 and LP-736.

addition of error factors and their estimated corrections can act differently in each dating and, thus, produce an effect of dispersion on the range of dates, this does not imply that such dispersion, if it actually occurred, should coincide with the stratigraphic ordering. Though it is still very hard to decide the exact stratigraphic sequence of the fillings of the pits that are located inside the room, it is now clearer that the pit we have found under the wall of the room should have to be previous to its construction and, thus, to the occupation of the house. Hence, there is a stratigraphic sequence established between this pit, the building of the house, and the occupations inside it, that turns out coincident with the chronometric sequence.

and 300 and between 320 and 600 of the Christian era-, the building of TC1’s house would have more likely occurred after the digging and filling up of the described pit. Applying the correction factors that are expected for ancient wood and long-life wood, the building of the house could be dated up to 400 years more recently, that is, between 250 A.D. and 1000 A.D. (Figure 5.71). Nevertheless, the concordance between the fact that date LP-724 is the oldest of the sequence, and the fact that it should be stratigraphically interpreted as a TPQ event that is, that it should be the oldest-, confirms the date of the sample as applicable to the filling context of the pit that, as we said, was dug before the construction of the wall (Figure 5.70). If p -the addition of the correction factors for ancient wood and long-life wood- or some other of the possible calibration errors we have mentioned had been applied, each one of the remaining thirteen dates would have been an occasion for a chronometric inversion. That is to say, even though the

TAQ: The last occupation of TC1A1 -which did not occupy contiguous room TC1A2- can confidently be assigned to the Hispanic-Indigenous or Early Colonial period -that is, to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries A.D. and, less likely, to the eighteenth. This assignation 135

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA there is only one hiatus in the chronological sequence, between date LP-736 and date LP-780 (Figure 5.70). There could be a minimum hiatus of 295 (95.4 per cent of confidence) to 315 (68.2 per cent of confidence) years (from 1240 A.D. to 1535 A.D. and from 1220 A.D. to 1535 A.D. respectively), and a maximum hiatus of 610 (68.2 per cent of confidence) to 650 (95.4 per cent of confidence) years (from 1040 A.D. to 1650 A.D. and from 1020 A.D. to 1670 A.D. respectively) in the occupation (Figure 5.74). Even though it is not possible to compare this radiocarbon sequence to the stratigraphic sequence directly (due to the difficulty of Figure 5.71: Calibration of date LP-724 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. ordering in a sequence the Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1 of TC1. stratigraphy of the pits), we can nonetheless compare it to TC1’s is based upon the finding of European materials ceramic sequence. In fact, the wares that are previous to Venetian glass beads, iron- and pottery related to the the Early Colonial or Hispanic-Indigenous period are period around and after the time of conquest -footed assignable to the endings of the Middle period or Ordinary Caspinchango pots, polychrome Yocavil bowlsTiwanaku Expansion period, datable to the eleventh and (Figure 5.90). We have not observed later occupations, twelfth centuries, calendar time. We did not find any and the historic relationship allows establishing a pottery that corresponded to Regional Developments or terminus ante quem for the occupation of TC1A1 of the Inca periods. Then, the chronometric sequence sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With this assignation corresponds to the ceramic sequence, reaffirming the we have obtained a date, LP-736, out of a charcoal TAQ nature of the Hispanic-Indigenous occupation, but sample that was recollected in horizontal stratum [19], also establishing a hiatus of about 2 or 3 centuries later redefined [19g]. The calibration of this date with between the abandonment of the occupation towards the 95.4 per cent of confidence offers a range between 1470late Middle or Tiwanaku Expansion period and its 1680 A.D. and 1740-1800 A.D. (Figure 5.91). Even reoccupation during the Early Colonial period. Room A2 though this is not a context directly related to the final was not reoccupied during such period, and it is quite occupation of the room, the sample was obtained from likely it was already fallen (the entrance between both the upper levels of context [19], at barely 30 to 50 mm rooms was found closed with mud). below the floor of [7], and in a sector that is close to the eastern wall. Since a great wall fall of big blocks from The chronometric interpretation, taking into account all wall [46] took place directly over the area from which we the necessary precautions we have previously mentioned afterwards took the sample, it is highly probable that a and the analyses we have exposed, allows the following vertical movement of a few centimetres downwards chronological interpretation of the history of the house of might have occurred, making the charcoal fragment that TC1: had originally been included in the room during the last occupation to be finally incorporated into the matrix of Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1 -Filling deposit [69] inside previous context [19]. The finding of some other pit [71] under wall [45] of A1, expandable to the building elements that can also be assigned to Hispanicof the house of TC1: Between 250 A.D. and 300 A.D. Indigenous occupation -such as fragments of ware (0.07) and between 320 A.D. and 600 A.D. (0.93) (LPOrdinary Caspinchango -1- and a glass bead- at contexts 724), approximately between mid-fourth and mid-sixth [17] and [19] -which are lower than [7] and where those centuries A.D. (Figure 5.71). ware and bead types abound-, allows thinking that such Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 -Filling deposit [26] in slight vertical movement might have implied some room A1: In such stratigraphic unit we obtained charcoal elements, among which we might place charcoal sample for radiocarbon determination LP-764: 1460±60 BPcal; LP-736, crossing the boundaries of the stratigraphic units 440-670 A.D. (95.4 per cent of probability); 540-650 where they had originally been deposited. Statistically, A.D. (68.2 per cent of probability), approximately

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.72: Diagnostic finds of period 3 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis corresponding to the Early Colonial period. To the left, top to bottom, fragment of Polychrome Yocavil bowl, Venetian glass beads, and fragments of an iron artefact. To the right, two Ordinary Caspinchango pots.

Figure 5.73: Calibration of date LP-736 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Period 3 of occupation of TC1.

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between mid-sixth and midseventh centuries A.D. (Figure 5.75). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 Filling deposit [19] inside pit [32] in A1: Charcoal samples for radiocarbon determination LP-745 (1430±60 BPcal; 560-660 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 450-690 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence) and LP-763 (1240±50 BPcal; 680-820 A.D. (94 per cent of the distribution) and 840-860 A.D. (6 per cent of the distribution) with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 670-890 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence). Calibrated mean 600-820 A.D. (98 per cent of the distribution) and 840-860 A.D. (2 per cent of the distribution) with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 450-1000 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence. Approximately seventh, eighth,

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 5.74: Comparison of the calibrations of dates LP-780 and LP-736 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. The hiatus in the occupation of TC1 (Period 2) can be observed.

Figure 5.75: Calibration of date LP-764 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 of TC1.

Figure 5.76: Calibration of the average of dates LP-745 and LP-763 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 of TC1.

and first half of ninth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.76). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 4 -Filling deposit [19] inside pit [32] in A1: Charcoal for radiocarbon determination LP-795 (1350±80 BPcal; 610-770 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 550-880 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence).

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Approximately seventh and eighth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.77). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 5 -Filling deposit [19] of the northern part of pit [32] in A1: Charcoal for radiocarbon determination LP-774 (1360±60 BPcal; 610-720 A.D. (95 per cent of the distribution) and 740-760 A.D. (5 per cent of the distribution) with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 550-790 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence). Approximately between early seventh and mid-eighth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.96). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 6 -Filling deposit [79] of pit [82] in A1: Charcoal sample for date LP-741: 1130±70 BPcal; 810-990 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 710-1030 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence, though with little quantity of carbon. Approximately ninth and tenth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.97). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 7 -Filling deposit [174] of pit in A2: Charcoal for radiocarbon determination LP-945 (1130±90 BPcal; 790-990 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 670-1040 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence). Approximately between late eighth and late tenth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.98). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8 -Filling deposit of pit [171] in A2: Charcoal for radiocarbon determination LP-964 (1080±60 BPcal; 890-1000 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 790-1040 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence). Approximately between late ninth and late tenth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.81). Chrono-stratigraphic Phase 1 -Accumulation of floor [17] in A1: Since determination LP-739 (1050±45 BPcal; 900-910 A.D. (7 per cent of the distribution) and 950-1020 A.D. (93 per cent of the distribution) with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 8801040 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of trust) comes from a charcoal sample that was extracted from ‘floor’ [17] -to which we can apply the previous discussion regarding additions of elements of consecutive occupations-, it is considered a determination within a phase (Figure 5.82).

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.77: Calibration of date LP-795 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 4 of TC1.

Figure 5.78: Calibration of date LP-774 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 5 of TC1.

Figure 5.79: Calibration of date LP-741 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 6 of TC1.

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Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9 -Filling deposit of pit [160] in A2: Charcoal for radiocarbon determination LP-967 (960±50 BPcal; 1010-1160 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 970-1220 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence). Approximately between early eleventh and midtwelfth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.83). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 10 -Filling deposit of pit [27] in A1: Determination Beta-44660 (900±70 BPcal; 1030-1190 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 1010-1260 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence) was obtained from a charcoal sample taken from a survey that was made before the stratigraphic excavation and that was dug by arbitrary levels; radiocarbon determination LP-780 (880±60 BPcal; 1040-1220 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 1020-1260 A.D. with 95.4 per cent of confidence) was obtained from the stratigraphic excavation. The calibrated mean (1020-1250 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence and 880-1310 A.D. (99 per cent of the distribution) and 1350-1390 A.D. (1 per cent of the distribution) with 95.4 per cent of confidence) indicates a chronology of approximately early eleventh and mid-thirteenth centuries A.D. Chrono-stratigraphic Phase 2 -Accumulation of floor [19] in A1: Determination LP-736 (270±50 BPcal; 1510-1600 A.D. (60 per cent of the distribution), 1620-1670 A.D. (38 per cent of the distribution), and 1780-1790 A.D. (2 per cent of the distribution) with 68.2 per cent of confidence; 1470-1680 A.D. (87 per cent of the distribution) and 1740-1800 A.D. (13 per cent of the distribution) with 95.4 per cent of confidence), obtained from the horizontal stratum of ‘floor’ [19], must be understood as TAQ for such stratigraphic unit and for the occupation of the room as a whole (Figure 5.73). It was during Chrono-stratigraphic Phase 1 -which is the long occupation period that goes from Event 1 to Event 10 and whose duration can be thus approximately estimated between 500 and 900 years- when all the pits inside the rooms were dug. The charcoal samples, afterwards interpreted as Chrono-stratigraphic Events 1 to 10, for dates LP764, LP-745, LP-774, LP-795, LP-763, LP-741, LP-739, Beta-44660, and LP-780, come from the fillings of the pits inside room A1, and the samples for dates LP-945, LP-964, and LP-967, from the ones inside room A2. If we take into account the calibrated dates, this period 1, between fourth/sixth and eleventh/thirteenth centuries A.D., coincides, roughly, with the Tiwanaku Expansion (Tiwanaku III, Classic, and Post-classic phases in McAndrews, Albarracín-Jordán, and Bermann 1997; see as well Kolata 1993) and Regional Integration periods and their immediate predecessors.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA structures, allow describing period 1 as one of continuous or almost continuous and permanent or almost permanent occupation by, at least, part of the group, because we did not find any of the intermediate stratigraphic hiatus that might have been produced by roof and wall falls. The floors were kept clean during period 1, most of the finds being concentrated in pit fillings. The final abandonment of the house does not seem to have foreseen a return because there were no elements left inside the room. The seal of the entrance to room A2 is also probably related to such abandonment towards the end of period 1.

Figure 5.80: Calibration of date LP-945 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 7 of TC1.

Figure 5.81: Calibration of date LP-964 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8 of TC1.

There are no evidences of occupation between the abandonment of the house towards the end of period 1, probably short after Chrono-stratigraphic Event 10, and the reoccupation of room A1. Between Event 10 and the reoccupation of room A1, a period 2 can be then characterized by an abandonment of site TC1, at least between midthirteenth and early sixteenth centuries. We were able to determine the presence of remains of organic material and sediment that probably came from the covering of the roof that had fallen towards the interior of room A1, which would coincide with period 2. With the reoccupation of room A1 -remaining room A2 unoccupied and, most likely, fallen- a period 3 of occupation of TC1 starts. Though its duration cannot be estimated upon the basis of radiocarbon information yet, it is presumable that it did not last more than 150 years. The final abandonment of room A1, nonetheless, does not seem to have been definitive, because the room remained equipped with still useful artefacts: ceramic pots and bowls, probably an iron pot. These artefacts were located face down at the bottom of the eastern wall, which ended up falling over the pottery producing its breakage. It would seem that this was a temporary abandonment of the site; that, even though it finally did not happen, a return was expected. Pottery and Time

Figure 5.82: Calibration of date LP-739 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Phase 1 of TC1.

The radiocarbon sequence and the taphonomic action by rodents,35 as well as the association to agricultural production 35

See Chapter 7, this volume.

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Making a ceramic sequence for TC1 has multiple purposes. Firstly, it allows characterising the continuities and changes of one of the most conspicuous artefacts one can find in the archaeological sites of the region. This, at the same time, introduces other two possibilities. On one hand, the presence of wares that are already known and chronologically determined in other neighbouring regions in TC1’s sequence can be considered an independent testing of the local sequence. On the other hand, the presence of wares that are locally diagnostic of particular periods of the sequence can be used for locating, chronologically -at least in a preliminary way,

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.83: Calibration of date LP-967 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9 of TC1.

Figure 5.84: Calibration of the average of dates Beta-44660 and LP780 through OxCal v. 2.18 software. Corresponds to Chronostratigraphic Event 10 of TC1.

surface assemblages of this and other nearby localities. The pottery of TC1 was analysed and classified according to Orton, Tyers, and Vince’s proposals (1992). These authors propose a classification system that, because it takes the best of both typological and analytic methods, it avoids their respective limitations. Typological methods usually create artificial entities -types- according to subjective criterions that not always coincide with the making of ceramic pots. On their side, analytic methods, mainly when we are dealing with highly fragmented archaeological assemblages, artificially reduce the unit of analysis to the shred, not considering the complete pot as a technological and functional unit (Adams and Adams 1991). The adopted system, instead, despite considering each shred as observational unit, keeps the complete pot -nor the shred neither the type- as theoretical unit. This way, these authors define particular wares as ‘families’ or ways of making a pot. On the other hand, they propose relating the observed shreds to complete pots through a theoretical reconstruction based on the geometry of circular-shaped

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bodies. Thus, two shreds will not be classified together because it is assumed that they belong to a same ideal type but, instead, because, given their fabric descriptive characteristics and their surface treatment, they might belong to a same pot.36 This allows avoiding the difficulties that are introduced by classification systems that build ideal types in an artificial way or artificially reduce practical objects into their resulting fragments. But it also allows a technological interpretation of ceramic comparisons: the shreds grouped within a same ware are only grouped because they share fabric and surface treatment to an extent that allows considering them as potential shreds of a same pot. The resulting comparison is, then, between particular ways of making ceramic pots and not between abstract types or non-functional shreds. Those grouped wares, assuming that these ways of making ceramic pots have changed throughout time in actually acknowledgeable manners, can be used for building a sequence of such ways of making ceramic pots (Sillar 1997). It is true that the stratigraphy of TC1 establishes certain limits to the possibility of building a ceramic sequence. But, at the same time, it is also true that such limits, if understood correctly, do not impede ceramic sequencing either (DeBoer et al. 1997). Nevertheless, they do make chronological discriminations rather difficult and they do allow including just part of the entire pottery repertory of TC1 in the sequence. Floors, since they are succeeding aggregates without any sedimentological closure, received later inclusions due to trampling, sweeping, etc. Hence, they cannot be considered apt stratigraphic contexts for sequential definition of their inclusions. On the other hand, pits, the other relevant constituting part of the site’s stratigraphy, do present, despite we can assume they were closed deposits that thus limited possible migrations, two difficulties. In first place, as it has been explained above, it is very difficult to establish the exact stratigraphic position of pits because the break of slope at their tops has been beheaded by posterior actions of sweeping, trampling, etc. Secondly, some pit fillings have been cut by later pits and it is highly probable that some mixture between them had taken place. Furthermore, this characteristic of cutting previous sediments that pits present includes the additional possibility of them incorporating earlier sediments as in pit filling contexts. Nonetheless, and with the necessary precaution once we know and/or presume our limitations, it is possible to propose a preliminary sequence using the relationships between our dated charcoal 36 Since the pot is working as theoretical unit, the verification of this being actually so is not necessary.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 5.85: TC1’s chronology. Solid boxes indicate calibrations of chrono-stratigraphic events (CSE) of TC1 in calendar years with 68.2 per cent of confidence, and lines, with 95.4 per cent of confidence. White boxes indicate calibrations of chrono-stratigraphic phases (CSP) of TC1 in calendar years with 68.2 per cent of confidence, and lines, with 95.4 per cent of confidence. The black stripes of the back of the table indicate periods of inoccupation of the domestic compound; the white ones, periods of occupation; the passage of greys indicates the degree of accuracy of the limit between periods. To the right, periods 0 (before the building), 1 (occupation), 2 (inoccupation), 3 (reoccupation), and 4 (inoccupation), as well as the main events related to the occupation of the oasis, are indicated.

samples and well known shreds that belong to contexts (or parts of them) that we can presume closed. For a start, we can assume this ‘closed’ nature for the basal portions of pit fillings, that is, for those parts of the fillings that are inside the cutting of the sterile basal sediment and that at the same time were not cut by later pits. The resulting wares, and their chronological ascription, can be compared with wares of other presumably closed contexts so to seriate the pottery within the construction of a

tentative sequence. We will continue to describe such sequence. Event 1, as it was described above, is associated to a group of stratigraphic contexts that are related to the initial building of the house of TC1. Inside pit [71], located under wall [45], we found three stratigraphic units of filling: bottom to top: [69], [66], and [63]. The cutting of pit [71] and the deposit of its fillings are considered

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THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS actions chronologically related to Event 1. Filling context [69] included five shreds that were classified the following way: (a) two little body shreds of ware Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil37 -3238- (1.8 gr), both with repairing perforation; (b) a big mouth shred of ware -26- (31.7 gr); (c) a medium-size body shred of 7- (14.5 gr); and (d) a medium-size fragment of ceramic body of ware -2- (14.6 gr). Above filling context [69], there was unit [66], which included the charcoal that was processed for radiocarbon determination LP-724, and (a) a medium-size body shred of ware -5- (12.3 gr); (b) a medium-size body shred of -26- (11.1 gr); and (c) a body shred of ware -21- (7.8 gr). Finally, the third level of filling, [63], contained (a) two little shreds of ware Black Polished San Pedro -39- (6 gr); (b) a medium-size body shred of ware -10- (18.9 gr); and (c) a medium-size body shred of ware -16- (13.2 gr).

periods in which they were used. These two wares continue to appear in later moments of the sequence. Besides, shreds of wares Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, -26-, -7-, -5-, -21-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, -20-, -10-, and -16- can be associated to Event 1 too. The association of these wares, particularly -26-, -2-, -16-, -8-, and Black Polished San Pedro, has, as it has been already seen, some independent confirmations. Finally, we can also associate to Event 1, though with less certainty, ware -4-. Generally, the wares that can be unambiguously related to Event 1 are those that present monochrome (wares -8-, 7-, -20-, and -16-), red, brown, and black slips, and those that show brown mica as a feature of surface treatment (ware -2-, -26-, and -7-). We should add those wares with thick inclusions and less neat terminations (-5-, -21-, -10-, and, probably, -4-) and, finally, two exotic wares, Grey Incised Ciénaga/Line-Polished Saujil and Black Polished San Pedro, which confirm the chronologic assignation of the entire pottery assemblage that appears associated to Event 1. Even though wares -10- and -16- do appear in contexts associated to Event 1, they do not show again throughout the sequence. Hence, they may be tentatively considered diagnostic of the most ancient moment of the sequence.

Building deposits, mainly those that included complete, specially disposed pieces of pottery, can be confidently associated to Event 1 too. The globular pot of context [75] that was found inside the wall towards the northeastern corner of TC1A1, and a similar pot that was found fragmented among the sediment of wall fall context of the eastern wall of that same room, are ware 2- that coincides with the shred that was recovered from context [69]. Inside the globular pot that had been deposited in wall [75], we found (a) one big body shred, one medium-size neck shred, and one body shred of ware -20-; (b) two little shreds of -16-; (c) one medium-size shred of -8-; and (d) one medium-size shred of ware Black Polished San Pedro -39-. The little neck-modelled jar that was deposited under the first row of the outer eastern wall of TC1A1 is also ware -8-. The fragmented pottery found included in the fillings of the walls can also be related to Event 1. Since some of the shreds might have been included during the occupation of the room and since, besides, there is the additional possibility of one or more partial reconstructions of the walls- the task of discriminating the shreds included during the construction of the walls and those included later on becomes rather difficult. It is worth mentioning, nonetheless, that a really big body shred of ware -4- (302 gr) was recovered in context [4]. Unit [5] included 179 shreds of ware -2-, all of them part of the globular pot that was originally included as building deposit inside the wall. Four of these shreds weighted more than 100 gr, and the addition of all the fragments reached a total weight of 2,494 gr. These two wares (-4- and -2-) were also the most abundant in unit [6], but no shred over 100 gr was found there.

Most of the wares related to Event 1 also appear in later moments of the sequence. This is quite expectable if we think that it is highly probable that those later wares were made in the same ways than the wares that were in use while the house was being built. But it is also probable that, since we are dealing with pit filling contexts that were dug on the floors of habitational rooms, some of the material that was extracted while digging those pits was afterwards reused as filling. This way, it is possible that some earlier items might have been included in filling matrixes of later pits, creating, thus, secondary associations. We can explain, then, the really long duration of some wares throughout the sequence. Even though we could partially clarify this possibility through analyses of fragmentation and erosion and direct chronometry of shreds through luminescence-dating techniques, such detailed analyses still wait to be developed. For the moment, it is necessary to take into account that maybe only the first times that specific ceramics appear are chronologically significant. The basal portion of context [26] -from which we defined Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2- includes some of the wares already mentioned in association to Event 1: -5-, -26-, -4, and Black Polished San Pedro -39-. Wares -29-, -40-, and Grey-Brown Incised Ciénaga -47- (similar to ware Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, associated to Event 1) are also associated to Event 2. Since ware Grey-Brown Incised Ciénaga -47- does not appear again in the sequence, it can be considered diagnostic of this moment.

Hence, wares -2- and -8- can be associated to Event 1 within a context of use. That is, since the pieces that were found were complete, they must have been close to the 37 For a description of this one or any other of the remaining wares, see Haber 2000. 38 The numerical code of each ware, which follows the order in which they appear in Haber 2000, appears between dashes.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Determination LP-736, extracted from ‘floor’ [19] and, again, taking into account the permeable nature of these strata, does not allow a certain association either. Nonetheless, it is possible to establish an association based on the knowledge of its pottery in other areas and the presence of European items (glass beads, iron). The wares associated to period 3 are: Ordinary Caspinchango -1-, Polychrome Yocavil -9-, and, probably, -41-. These wares, even though they are associated to some of the already mentioned wares too, are represented by almost complete pots that are entirely absent in closed pit fillings contexts and only appear in contexts related to the last occupation of the room.

The wares associated to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 that have already appeared in the sequence are: -4-, -7-, -8-, 26-, -29-, -5-, -20-, -21-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, and -40-. Besides, there are wares -3-, -6-, -24-, -33-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, -36-, -38-, -45-, Grey FineIncised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín -46-, and Grey Engraved Hualfín -48-. Since ware -45- only appears in this context (not earlier or later on the sequence), it diagnoses this moment. The following wares also appeared related to Chronostratigraphic Event 4: -8-, -3-, -33-, -6-, -26-, -7-, -29-, -4, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, Grey Engraved Hualfín 48-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, and Grey Fine-Incised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín -46-.

Summing up, it is absolutely possible, using the ceramic sequence, to clearly discriminate both periods of occupation -1 and 3- of TC1. Over the basis of the chronological sequence that goes from Chronostratigraphic Event 1 to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 10, it is also possible to suggest a tentative sequence within period 1. Even assuming that the duration of each ware was not the same, that their modifications throughout time cannot necessarily be appreciated with the same sensitivity, and that the really insistent appearance of some of them may be due to factors that might be more related to the history of formation of the site better than to the history of making and use of specific wares, some landmarks for the application of this ceramic sequence can be, at least as an attempt, forwarded. Figure 5.86 shows the ceramic sequence chronologically ordered through the associations between wares and charcoal samples determined by radiocarbon.39 The comparison with the sequences of southern Hualfín and Abaucán valleys independently tests the sequence made out of the information gathered at TC1 -specially, the presence of wares Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil and Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga in the most ancient moments of period 1 followed by the presence of wares Plain Grey Hualfín, Grey Engraved Hualfín, and Grey Fine-Incised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín in more recent moments of this same period (González and Cowgill 1975; Sempé de Gómez Llanes 1977a). The comparison with the Atacama sequence allows establishing relationships through the presence of ware Black Polished San Pedro (Tarragó 1968), which, in TC1’s sequence, appears since Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. This ware keeps on appearing throughout the sequence. Regrettably, other potentially diagnostic wares, such as Tricolour Vaquerías/Tricolour Las Cuevas (Cigliano, Raffino, and Calandra 1976; Heredia, Pérez, and González 1974), could not be included in TC1’s sequence because they appear in stratigraphic contexts

The wares that were found in basal portion of filling [19] of the northern part of pit [32] and were related to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 5 are: -21-, -26-, Grey FineIncised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín -46-, -4-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, and Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-. In basal portion of filling [79] of pit [82] -Chronostratigraphic Event 6-, we found wares -4-, -21-, -24-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, and -40-. In basal portion of pit filling [174] -Chrono-stratigraphic Event 7-, we found wares -4-, -5-, -8-, and -33-. In basal portion of pit filling [171] -Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8-, we found formerly sequenced wares -4-, -33-, 3-, -24-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, -21-, -8-, -7-, and Grey Engraved Hualfín 48-. Wares -11- and Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga -31were also found associated to Event 8. These wares, since they do not appear in earlier or later moments of the sequence, can be tentatively considered diagnostic of this moment. As determination LP-739 comes from a charcoal sample from ‘floor’ [17] (to which the previous discussion regarding the addition of items of successive occupations to earlier matrixes can be applied), its pottery associations cannot be included in the sequence, that is, it is not considered a closed primary association but, instead, a determination within Chrono-stratigraphic Phase 1. In basal portion of pit filling [160] -Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9-, the following formerly sequenced wares were found: -4-, -24-, -6-, -2-, -21-, -3-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, -20-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, -7-, -5-, -36-, and -38-. We also found ware -15-in this context. Since it does not appear earlier or later on the sequence, it can be tentatively considered diagnostic of this moment.

39

It is necessary to insist on the fact that this is a tentative proposal that has a local, perhaps micro-regional applicability. Excavations that are currently being carried out in TC2, together with petrographic compositional analyses and chronometric analyses of the pottery of TC1 y TC2, will allow establishing the needed rectifications. Nonetheless, the proposed sequence includes some confirmations through comparisons between closed contexts, at least to the extent the currently available information has allowed.

Chrono-stratigraphic Event 10 is associated to wares: -4-, Black Polished San Pedro -39-, -26-, -3-, -2-, -8-, Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, and Grey Engraved Hualfín -48-. 144

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.86: Sequence of diagnostic wares of period 1 of TC1. The chrono-stratigraphic events (CSEs) to which each ware is associated are indicated. Boxes indicate calibrations in calendar years with 68.2 per cent of confidence; lines, with 95.4 per cent of confidence. Filled boxes correspond to diagnostic wares of specific CSEs; white boxes show the different associations of different particular diagnostic wares of period 1.

premeditated plan but, instead, that it was created throughout time. But the idea of domestic cells, on the other hand, entails another implication. Even though assuming the domestic compounds were progressively built throughout time, at some point and during a certain period, some of them must have been contemporaneously inhabited, and each irrigation domestic mini-system must have integrated a general system. This interpretation, as it is known, is one of really difficult verification within archaeology because the available dating methods do not allow such a slight chronometry. Nonetheless, it is possible to bring out some elements in favour of an interpretation of contemporaneousness. Such elements belong to two independent levels: productive function and ceramic sequence.

whose closeness is less reliable -for example, wall fillings or wall falls. The comparison with the sequence of Toro valley points out a concordance regarding decoration by incision/engraving, which would have contemporaneously emerged during the second phase of Toro valley and in the earliest moments of TC1 (Cigliano, Raffino, and Calandra 1976). Chronology of the Oasis In this Chapter we have described the general characteristics of the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico, the agricultural logic of their particular disposition, and the surface evidences of each one of them. The possibility that, given the agricultural logic of their construction and the potentially independent nature of their functioning, each domestic compound might have functioned as a cell, has been discussed; this would imply that they were not necessarily built at the same time. A progressive addition of domestic compounds in previously unoccupied places, where, besides, it was possible to built agricultural fields, could have well been the case. Concurrently, these last ones might have been irrigated through canals that were independently derived from the river. That is to say, it does not seem that the village was built upon a

Technical reasons could be invoked in order to explain the spatial disposition of irrigation canals, among them, optimal gradient, nature of the soil substrate, transversal slope, length of the canal, available containment materials, etc. But the fact of each domestic unit building, managing, and maintaining a water transportation system in an entirely independent way, is very likely an answer to social motivations. With this, we are trying to imply that there must have been a reason behind the fact that a common canal or some kind of longitudinal association 145

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA between mini-systems in order to reduce technical costs of maintenance was never even intended. A structure such as the one that was built in Tebenquiche Chico, where each domestic unit carries water directly from the river through its own canals that reach up to 0.7 km, would have cost more, energetically speaking, than a structure in which each domestic unit took water from main canals, deriving it only within the outskirts of its fields. This, on the other hand, might have had other costs, social costs, that it would seem the inhabitants of Tebenquiche Chico never could or wanted to afford. What seems clear within the irrigation management system of Tebenquiche Chico is that the access to water, the same as it happened with land, was socially restricted to the domestic unit. Thus, whether a house was inhabited at a particular moment or not, it must have kept its access rights to agricultural resources -land and water. In fact, we have not observed any case of canals deriving water from one domestic system to another. Functionally speaking -and this implies the kind of access to productive resources-, each one of the domestic units was in conditions of operating at the same time. And, even though it might be very hard to find direct evidences of this, the investment on and the maintenance of the fixed agricultural infrastructure through which, at one time, the access of each domestic unit to the productive agricultural resources was demarcated, allow inferring that the access rights of each one of them were simultaneously valid.

classification of TC1’s material. The few non-comparable shreds corresponded to ware Red Inca -51-, only collected in compound TC32 (five shreds). The remaining non-classifiable shreds are those that, due to their reduced size (less than 20 mm in all their dimensions) and/or because they present excessive rolling and/or erosion, could not be analyzed at all. It is necessary to notice that the commensurability of surface and stratified contexts is not inevitably direct. But, on the other hand, it is neither impossible. There can be many and varied mechanisms through which formerly buried shreds can get to the surface so to become visible and integrate recollection contexts. For instance, in TC1, where the excavation started once a complete collection of surface material had been carried, not all the diverse wares found in the stratigraphy appeared in the surface too, or at least not in the same proportions. There is a greater presence of wares related to the last occupation (period 3) than of those related to period 1. Nevertheless, and generally speaking, it can be stated that surface contexts are more or less representative of the variety of, at least, those wares that are more abundant in the stratigraphic contexts of the sequence. The same cannot be said regarding the quantity in which each ware appears in both surface and stratified contexts. Hence, surface contexts can be considered as a preliminary approximation to the ware variety that exists in the stratigraphy. In surface contexts of TC26,43 a great number of shreds, mainly wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1-, -4-, -2-, and -8, were collected. Wares -2- and -8- have been related to TC1’s Event 1. Wares -5-, -21-, -26-, -20-, and diagnostic wares -10- and -16-, equally related to the most ancient times of TC1’s sequence, were also found. The presence of ware -40- and, mainly, the presence of diagnostic ware Grey-Brown Incised Ciénaga -47-, relate TC26 to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2. The presence of wares -3-, -24-, -33-, -38-, and -45- in TC26’s surface assemblage relates it to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3, mostly considering that the last ware is tentatively diagnostic. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8 can be diagnosed through wares -11- and Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga -31-, also present in TC26’s surface assemblage. Finally, the presence of wares

In second place there is the ceramic evidence. Comparing dated wares with those that come from surface collections has been and still is the way in which the chronology of non excavated sites has been usually, and particularly in Andean archaeology, tentatively assigned. In Tebenquiche Chico, all the pottery obtained in the excavation of TC1, as well as all the surface pottery collected from the compact cores of every surveyed domestic compound except for TC7, was studied.40 Even though the sequence that has been established through the pottery and the stratigraphical and chronometrical analyses of TC1 cannot be considered otherwise than preliminary, it is only through excavations in other compounds of Tebenquiche Chico41 and other valleys, as well as through more detailed analyses regarding ceramic composition, technology, function, and chronometry,42 that we will be able to affirm and/or rectify the proposed sequence. Nonetheless, the successful independent though partial- tests with sequences of Abaucán, Atacama, El Toro, and Hualfín, encourages the belief in the general validity of this sequence. Almost all the shreds recovered through surface recollection in habitational rooms of different domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico could be assigned to wares that had been previously defined during the analysis and

43 It is worth mentioning that the surface collection carried was complete, that is, every single visible artefact on the surface and not just pot shreds were collected. The collection included all the surveyed domestic compounds, and it was not only carried in habitational rooms but, at least in some cases, also in agricultural areas and canals. Nonetheless, in order to allow the comparison between domestic compounds, and since the purpose of the comparison between surface contexts and TC1’s ceramic sequence is a closer approximation to the chronology of occupation of each one of the domestic compounds and the village as a whole, the analysis included in this work is circumscribed to the surface contexts of compact cores. Only delimited spaces and the structures within them were considered collection units. This way, for example, the collected material was divided by room, hallway, or patio, but also according to contexts (floors, walls, wall falls). In order to simplify the analysis, surface contexts will be considered by domestic compound.

40 TC7, therefore, is not incorporated to the analysis of the oasis’ chronology. 41 As the one that is being carried out in TC2 since 1996. 42 Such analyses are currently being developed.

146

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS shows an occupation sequence very much similar to TC1’s.

Ordinary Caspinchango -1- and -41- indicates that TC26 would have also been occupied during period 3. The variety of pottery found in the surface of TC26 allows, then, suggesting a tentative chronology that would be similar to the one already suggested for TC1. Other wares present in TC1, though not susceptible of stratigraphic characterization, were also found in TC26: -13-, -14-, 12-, and Red Polished San Pedro -27-, which might assign the compound to earlier moments of the sequence.

In TC28 little quantity of pottery was collected. Among its surface assemblage, we have found wares -26-, -2-, -8, Black Polished San Pedro -39 and -10- (tentatively diagnostic), all of them related to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 1. Ware -40-, which, though also present afterwards, relates TC28 to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 2, was also found. Wares -3-, -6-, and -24-, though not diagnostic, are related to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 3. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of wares -11-, Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga 31-, and -15-, might allow diagnosing some concordances with TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Events 8 (-11- and -31-) and 9 (-15-). Chrono-stratigraphic Event 10 cannot be diagnosed though associated ceramics were found. Finally, the presence of wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1and -41- indicates occupations in TC28 during period 3. Besides, wares -14-, -12-, and Red Polished San Pedro 27- were also found. Summing up, the variability of TC28’s surface pottery assemblage suggests that such domestic compound has been occupied during the first and final moments of period 1 -though probably during intermediate moments too- and during period 3.

Compound TC27, on its side, presented much less surface pottery. The most abundant ware in the assemblage is -8-, which, together with -7-, -2-, diagnostic wares -10- and 16-, and probably -4-, form the assemblage of TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. Although ware -38- is not stratigraphically diagnostic strictly speaking, its presence would relate TC27 to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3. The presence of ware Ordinary Caspinchango -1allows assuming an occupation of TC27 during period 3. Even though it is possible that these differences in the pottery variety of TC27 are related to the little quantity of pottery collected in its surface, the analysis of this assemblage allows noticing that this compound would have probably been occupied during the most ancient moments of period 1 and that, even though it was also occupied afterwards, perhaps such occupations were not as continuous or as permanent as the pottery assemblages of TC1 and TC26 allowed us imagining for their respective compounds.

A great variety of pottery was collected from the surface of TC29. Wares -4-, -5-, -8-, -2-, diagnostic wares -10and -16-, -20-, -21-, -26-, and Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32, relate TC29 to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 1. Wares -29- and -40-, present in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 although also afterwards, are also present in TC29. Wares -3-, -6-, -24-, -33-, and Plain Grey Hualfín -34- relate TC29 to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 (though they are also present in later moments of the sequence). Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of wares -11-, Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga -31-, and -15-, may indicate some concordances with TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Events 8 (-11- and -31-) and 9 (-15-). Finally, the presence of wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1- and -41indicates occupations in TC29 during period 3. We have also collected wares -12-, -13-, -14-, Red Engraved San Pedro -17-, Red Polished San Pedro -27-, -37-, -44-, and Black-Inside-Painted Hualfín -49-. The pottery variety found suggests a sequence for TC29 that would be similar to TC1’s. Nonetheless, it is equally probable that this compound was not occupied during the intermediate moments of period 1.

In TC2 a great amount of surface pottery was collected. Among the wares associated to the building of TC1’s house, we found -4-, -5-, -26- (these among the most abundant), -10-, (diagnostic of TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 1), -2-, -7-, -8-, -21-, Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, and Black Polished San Pedro -39-. The three wares that appear related to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 for the first time, -29-, -40-, and diagnostic ware Grey-Brown Incised Ciénaga -47-, are also present in TC2’s surface assemblage. Ware -3-, one of the most abundant in TC2’s surface assemblage, as well as wares -24-, -38-, -6-, -33-, -36-, Grey Fine-Incised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín 46- and diagnostic ware -47-, relate TC2 to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8 can be diagnosed through wares -11- and Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga -31-, also present in TC2’s surface assemblage. The same can be said about Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9, which can be diagnosed through ware -15-, present in TC2’s surface assemblage too. Chronostratigraphic Event 10 cannot be diagnosed though pottery associated to it has been collected. Finally, period 3 is represented by associated wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1- (one of the most abundant), Polychrome Yocavil -9- and -41-. Besides, wares -12-, -13-, -14-, Red Engraved San Pedro -17-, -18, -23-, -37-, -44-, and Black-Inside-Painted Hualfín -49were collected. Synthesising, TC2’s surface pottery

Due to the fact that TC35 is deeply removed, a large variety of pottery was collected in its surface. Even though the data is less consistent than the one recovered in other compounds, it can be analyzed. Wares -4- (the most abundant in the surface of TC35), -2-, -8-, -5-, -7-, 20-, -21-, diagnostic wares -10- and -16-, -26-, and Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, relate TC35 to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. Ware -29-, 147

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of wares -11- and -15- might, respectively, allow diagnosing TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Events 8 and 9. Finally, the presence of ware Ordinary Caspinchango -1- indicates occupations in TC32 during period 3. Wares -12-, -13-, -14- and -23-, 44-, and Inca Exterior -51- were also collected. Summing up, since the pottery assemblage collected at TC32’s surface contains wares from different moments of TC1’s sequence, it might have been occupied throughout it. The presence of ware Inca Exterior -51- opens, at the same time, the possibility of occupation in TC32 during period 2, while TC1 was unoccupied.

though it also appears in later moments of the sequence, is related to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2. Wares 3-, -6-, -24-, -33-, Plain Grey Hualfín -34-, and -36- relate this compound to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of wares -11-, Grey Smoothed Incised Ciénaga -31-, and -15-, might show some concordances with TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Events 8 (-11- and -31-), and 9 (-15-). Finally, the presence of wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1and Polychrome Yocavil -9- indicates occupations in TC35 during period 3. Wares -12-, -13-, -14-, -23-, and 37- were also collected. Because of the modifications the site has suffered due to the construction of the corrals and the post -for which the stones of the walls were removedto affirm its commensurability with other compounds becomes rather difficult. Nonetheless, it is probable that TC35 was occupied throughout a sequence very much similar to TC1’s.

In TC31, little quantity of surface pottery was collected. Among them, wares -26-, -2-, -8-, -4-, and diagnostic ware -10- were found, all of them present in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. Wares -3-, Grey FineIncised Ciénaga/Grey Engraved Hualfín -46-, and Grey Engraved Hualfín -48- were also collected, all present in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of ware -15- may allow diagnosing some concordances with TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 9. Finally, the presence of ware Ordinary Caspinchango -1-, the most abundant of the assemblage, indicates occupations in TC31 during period 3. In summary, TC31’s sequence might be comparable to TC1’s, though the first and final moments of period 1 and period 3 would be the best represented ones.

Very little pottery was found at TC34’s surface. Wares 2-, -4-, -5-, -8-, and diagnostic ware -16- are related to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. Ware -47-, collected at TC34’s surface, is diagnostic of TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 2. Even though it also appears later on the sequence, ware -6- shows for the first time in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3., Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. In summary, it is quite likely that TC34 was only occupied during the earlier moments of TC1’s sequence, until mid-period 1.

Very little pottery was collected from the surface of TC30, and since only some shreds, assigned to wares -4-, Ordinary Caspinchango -1-, and -44-, were classifiable, we can only infer occupations at some point of period 1 and during period 3.

In TC33, a considerable amount of surface pottery was collected. Among them, the most abundant -5-, -4-, -2-, 7-, -8-, diagnostic wares -16- and -10-, -26-, and Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32-, integrate contexts related to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. Ware -29- and diagnostic ware Grey-Brown Incised Ciénaga -47- are present in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2. Wares -3-, -6-, -24-, -33-, -36-, and -38-, though they also appear later on the sequence, are related to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3. Although related wares were collected, Events 4, 5, 6, and 7 cannot be diagnosed. The presence of wares -11- and -15 might, respectively, allow diagnosing TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Events 8 and 9. Finally, the presence of wares Ordinary Caspinchango -1- and -41- indicates occupations in TC33 during period 3.

The result of the comparison between surface pottery assemblages of different domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico and the pottery obtained at TC1 suggests that the sequence defined for TC1 can be tentatively extended to all the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico. This does not necessarily imply that events of building, abandonment, and reoccupation happened all at once. Instead, and concordantly with the agricultural architectural evidence previously discussed, the comparative analysis of pottery assemblages suggests that the periods of occupation defined in TC1’s chronological sequence can be considered, in general, valid for the rest of the superficially studied domestic compounds. The beginnings and endings of the occupations of each compound, on the other hand, might have occurred throughout temporal periods that are hard to define and, besides, there are some specificities that need to be mentioned.

In TC32, a great amount of ware -4- and also wares -5-, 10-, -26-, -2-, -7-, -8-, -16-, -20-, -21-, and Grey Incised Ciénaga/Grey Line-Polished Saujil -32- were collected, all of them relating this compound to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 1. Wares -29- and -40-, which appear in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 though also in later moments of the sequence, were also collected at TC32. Wares -24-, -3-, -6-, -33-, and Grey Engraved Hualfín -48- appear in TC32’s surface assemblage as well as in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 -though they remain present later on the sequence too. Although

One of the inevitable unintended effects of extending a ceramic sequence that is based on only one compound to an entire locality is that the extension of such sequence becomes limited by the ‘master sequence’. That is, none 148

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS sends back to contemporary moments to TC1’s Chronostratigraphic Event 1, that is, around the fifth century. If some of the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico -though not TC1 and probably neither TC30- had been founded during period 0, we should expect the presence of wares indicating earlier times than those of Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1, that is, the first centuries before and after beginnings of the Christian era. And, since the only local sequence of reference does not extend through time beyond Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1, we can only consider typologically and chronologically well defined wares of the surrounding regions. For example, ware Red Polished San Pedro -27-, present in the surface assemblages of TC26, TC28, and TC29, might represent period 0 occupations if it was not also present in Atacama contexts in somewhat later times (until 500 A.D. according to Tarragó 1968). The same may be estimated for ware Tricolour Las Cuevas or Vaquerías, which, though present in contexts associated to the second and third centuries B.C., is still present until 400 A.D. in the sequences of El Dique, Potrero Grande, and Las Cuevas44 (Cigliano, Raffino, and Calandra 1976). Other wares that are also present on surface assemblages of Tebenquiche Chico, such as several kinds of Ciénaga, Aguada, Black Polished and Red Engraved San Pedro, have been clearly associated to later moments in the areas where they were more abundant. On the other hand, wares indicating earlier moments have not been found45 in Tebenquiche Chico without certain ambiguity. Besides, the presence of unfired painting applications that in some sites were exclusively found in association to earlier contexts (see, for example, Cigliano, Raffino, and Calandra 1976), seems to correspond, in Tebenquiche Chico, to the sequence established for TC1 without any doubts, because, as Krapovickas (1968) and Tarragó (1976) suggested, we would be dealing with domestic pottery painted for funerary rituals.46 Finally, the typical pottery of Tebenquiche Chico, which in some cases is considered as ancient as the first centuries A.D. or even more (see, for example, the discussion on KipónTebenquiche in González 1992), has not been associated to any other dating except for the one obtained in TC1. Hence, and assuming the slipperiness of this realm in front of the absence of any kind of evidence, it could be stated that, even though it is very likely that several of the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico were built and inhabited before period 1 and that the successive reoccupations of the same constructions took off surface visibility from previous occupations, it would seem that such occupations would not have been much previous to

of the moments that were not originally contained in the reference sequence -in this case, TC1’s- will be able to be recognized. Another effect, related to the previous one, is that the scale of definition of the sequence will remain fixed by the precision and definition of the ‘master sequence’. In the case of TC1, its sequence is characterized by its great extension and little resolution. The first fact -its great extension- is the result of occupations that seem to have reiterated their location on a same space during a really long period of time. The second one -its little resolution- is an outcome of the selfimposed methodological limitations for the interpretation of the formation processes of TC1; that is, it was preferred to reduce the degree of chronologic resolution so to increase the precision of the significant associations: only those contexts that presented stratigraphic evidences of original integration between matrixes and inclusions and evidences of closures after original depositions, and that, besides, counted with radiocarbon determinations stratigraphically related (De Boer et al. 1996), have been incorporated to the seriation. As a result, it is probable that the reconstruction of the history of occupation of the oasis presents a bias against the earliest (period 0), latest (period 4), and intermediate (period 2) periods of TC1, in favour of periods 1 and 3, of greater occupation. With the purpose of synthesising the history of occupation of the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico, the visible periods -1 and 3in TC1, and the non-visible ones -0, 2 and 4- in the ‘master sequence’, will be evaluated. The possibility of occupations during period 0 -that is, before beginnings of period 1- can be glimpsed through the analysis of the nature of the occupations of period 1. In TC1, the building of the house included remains of previous occupations as secondary refuses. This points out directly towards the possibility of domestic cells being built, within the same site or in another one, before TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1. All the domestic compounds, except for TC30, contained diagnostic wares of beginnings of period 1 in their surfaces. Given the limitations of the ‘master sequence’, it is equally probable this is an effect of the ‘upwards flattening’ of the oasis’ sequence. That is, if there were occupations before period 1 in Tebenquiche Chico, their comparison to TC1’s sequence would not allow differentiating them from beginnings of period 1 easily. But if it is possible to assume occupations during period 0, it is worth asking ourselves about the duration of such period and the locus of construction of such occupations. And even though this is a realm that is as slippery as short of evidences, it is logic to assume that if there had been occupations during period 0, these would have been placed in the same loci that were afterwards occupied during period 1. This way, the accumulated effect of consecutive occupations settling in the same places would have ended up diminishing the surface visibility of the founding occupations. A probable exception is TC27, which joins two possible structural superpositions -group of burial chambers TC38 and domestic compound TC1- to one probable inoccupation -diagnostic ware of period 1 only

44 In Plate XVII, it appears in later levels to those associated to sample CSIC 123, determined in 260±50 A.D., that is, 1690±50 b.p., corrected for the southern hemisphere in 1720±50 b.p. (south), and calibrated between 250 A.D. and 380 A.D. with 68.2 per cent of confidence, and between 140 A.D. and 170 A.D. (2 per cent of the distribution) and 200 A.D. and 430 A.D. (98 per cent of the distribution) with 95.4 per cent of confidence. 45 Or, at least, they have not been found yet. 46 In Chapter 6, the relationship between the wares of TC1 and the wares with unfired painting applications recovered in funerary contexts will be broadly developed.

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Figure 5.87: Hypothesis of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico during period 0, approximately between the second and third centuries A.D. Probable founder occupations of the oasis. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

150

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.88: Hypothesis of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis during period 1. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

151

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA reoccupied towards the end of period 2. TC1, TC2, TC28, TC29, TC35, TC33, and TC31 were reoccupied after a long abandonment since endings of period 1. Instead, TC27 and TC34 had been abandoned much earlier, probably around the sixth century A.D. The period of inoccupation of TC30 cannot be defined yet, but it is quite clear it was occupied during period 3 (Figure 5.90).

TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1 (probably second or third centuries A.D.) (Figure 5.87). All the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico showed wares that were diagnostic of period 1 (Figure 5.88), and all the domestic compounds except for TC30 showed wares that were diagnostic of Chronostratigraphic Event 1, that is, beginnings of period 1, between mid-fourth and mid-sixth centuries A.D. TC1’s, TC26’s, TC2’s, TC34’s, and TC33’s surface assemblages included wares that diagnosed Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 (period 1, between mid-sixth and mid-seventh centuries). TC28, TC29, TC35, and TC32 were probably occupied during that period too. Two domestic compounds, TC27 and TC31, might have been unoccupied by that time. Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 (also within period 1, seventh-eighth to mid-ninth centuries) is represented by diagnostic wares in TC1, TC26, and TC2, but it is probable that TC27, TC28, TC29, TC35, TC34, TC33, TC32, TC31, and TC30 -that is, all the other compounds- were occupied as well. Chrono-stratigraphic Events 4, 5, 6, and 7, which cover the period that goes from the seventh to the tenth century A.D., cannot be diagnosed through the comparison of pottery assemblages but associated wares were found in the surfaces of all the domestic compounds. During Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8, late ninth to late tenth centuries A.D., and judging by the diagnostic wares found in their surfaces, TC1, TC26, TC2, TC28, TC29, TC35, TC33, and TC32 seem to have been occupied. TC27, TC34, and TC31, instead, seem to have remained unoccupied during that period. Towards Chronostratigraphic Event 9, between early eleventh and midtwelfth centuries, TC1, TC26, TC2, TC28, TC29, TC35, TC33, and TC32 continued to be occupied. TC27 and TC34 would have remained unoccupied. Chronostratigraphic Event 10, between early eleventh and midthirteenth centuries, could not be diagnosed through the comparison between pottery assemblages. Around midthirteenth century A.D., all the domestic compounds would have already been abandoned.

There have been other reoccupations after period 3, but these have not used the same loci previous domestic compounds had used. They have superposed themselves spatially to them, sometimes using stones of the archaeological architecture for the construction of new structures, but with different disposition. Such is the case of TC35, which has been reoccupied during period 4 (twentieth century) through the construction of big corrals and an outpost (Figure 5.91). It is possible, though there are no evidences of this being so, that such structures had been built some time before, during the mining expansion of the nineteenth century, within what has been later called Bolivian cycle of silver mining (Platt 1987). A system of sites formed by camps -LM1-, mule and llama corrals -LM12-, roads -CV1, LM2, LM3, LM5, LM7, LM8, LM9, LM10, LM13, and LM16-, settlements LM11-, shelters -LM4, LM14, LM15, LM17, LM18, and LM19-, and outposts -LM6- in Las Minas valley and Campo del Volcán, and a mineral mill in Antofalla valley -Af1- were discovered (Haber 1997). Such system of sites forms an archaeological landscape related to the exploitation of the silver mines of El Volcán47 towards mid-nineteenth century. Even though there are no evidences of contemporaneous occupations in Tebenquiche Chico, it could have well offered, as many other valleys within the area of the Antofalla salt lake, pastures for mules and llamas. Synthesising, the different domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico, with the probable exception of TC30, might have been built between the second or third centuries A.D. and the fourth or fifth centuries A.D. (Figure 5.92). TC27 and TC31 were probably abandoned around the sixth century A.D. and reoccupied a century later. The remaining domestic compounds continued to be occupied -with the possible exceptions of TC28, TC29, TC35, and TC32. In the seventh century all the compounds could have been occupied but TC1, TC26, and TC2 are the most likely cases. Towards the tenth century A.D., all the compounds would have been occupied except for TC27, TC34, and TC31. This last one is reoccupied around the eleventh century. Towards the twelfth century the valley of Tebenquiche Chico is abandoned. Only TC32 seems to have been occupied during the fifteenth century, but all the compounds, except for TC34, were reoccupied during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, taking into account the architectural evidences of productive function and the ceramic evidences of particular ways of making pots, it is possible to state that the different domestic compounds of

Only TC32 has shown evidences of probable occupation during period 2. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that characteristic Regional Development period ware (around fourteenth and fifteenth centuries A.D.), while it is quite abundant in the lower valleys, alluvial basins, and oases, has not been observed in any of the compounds of Tebenquiche Chico yet. Hence, if we can consider that the Inca ware present in TC32’s surface was deposited in pre-Hispanic times, towards the end of period 2, around the fifteenth century A.D., it is more likely that Tebenquiche Chico oasis was unoccupied at least two centuries earlier (Figure 5.89). At the beginnings of the Colonial period (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, period 3), all the domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico were reoccupied except for TC34 that seems to have remained unoccupied, and maybe TC32, that might have been already

47

152

It appears in IGM cartography as Volcán Antofalla.

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.89: Hypothesis of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis during period 2. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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Figure 5.90: Hypothesis of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis during period 3. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

154

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS

Figure 5.91: Hypothesis of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis during period 4. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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Figure 5.92: Chronology of TC1’s oasis. Chronological hypotheses of occupation of the different domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico based on the comparison to the ceramic sequence of TC1. Black is equivalent to probable inoccupation, white to probable occupation, and grey to less probable occupation.

Tebenquiche Chico formed a same village during really long times throughout period 1. It is in this sense that the previous appreciation of each domestic unit as a little oasis though forming, at the same time, the actual oasis, becomes relevant. Up to here, the village of Tebenquiche Chico has had periods of occupation separated by an inoccupation interval. The first period of occupation began at least in the first half of the first millennium A.D.

Even though we do count on a chronology for the building of TC1, the cellular nature of the domestic compounds suggests that the occupation of the valley might have started before. Estimating the period of time between the building of the first compound and the building of TC1 is, however, a quite improbable task until chronometric data for the remaining compounds is available. The recovered pottery, nevertheless, suggests 156

THE DOMESTIC SCALE OF THE OASIS traces of bonfires, domestic pots, probably with food or drinks specially prepared, and the body of a premature born human. The daily and long-term reproduction of the domestic unit was decidedly related to such ritual events. That is to say, the space of reproduction of the domestic unit -the house- was directly based on the sacrifice of its products, which, at the same time, were means of production -subsistence and reproduction. There is no evidence that allows deciding if the newly born was sacrificed or if he/she died naturally. Yet, the fact that he/she was placed beneath the wall of the house implies a practical-symbolic relationship: the ritual during which the body was deposited, the same as in the case of empty or full pots, formed part of the same whole of actions through which the new house was built. In this context, both the food that was not to be eaten and the offspring that was not to keep on living can be understood as sacrificial offerings. This way, the ritual nature of the building of the house as monument becomes intelligible: it is the space where the food will be prepared, served, and consumed; where the children will be born, taken care of, fed, and raised. The exact significance of this symbolic relationship is hard to interpret. Which ritual context, which particular expectations, which mythical references had to do with these ritual actions are questions that seem to be beyond the possibilities of argumentation. What does seem clear, instead, is the fact of the ritualization of the building of the house as domestic space implying the sacrificial deposition of products of the same domestic unit. This sacrificial nature specifically regards the fact that such products, when deposited, become excluded from the circulation of goods and people through which the domestic unit gets reproduced. And such interruption of the reproductive circulation is what is performed when the material space of the production and reproduction unit is built.

that the building of domestic cells in the oasis would not have been started before the first centuries of the first millennium A.D. The absence of wares from the last stage of the Late Agro-Pottery or Regional Development period in both surface and stratigraphic pottery assemblages powerfully calls the attention. It would seem to indicate an interval in the occupation of the valley at least during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries A.D., probably also the thirteenth. Finally, the general pattern of occupation includes a phase during the Early Colonial period, which is evidenced by the presence of different elements that are characteristic of the Hispanic-Indigenous period Ordinary Caspinchango ware, iron, Venetian glass beads, bone points-, and some other items that might have lasted until the first moments of the Hispanic expansion -such as Tricolour Yocavil ware and the few Inca ware shreds found (Figure 5.72) The first period of occupation characterizes the oasis landscape and, as such, it is the object of this work. The second period of occupation, by recycling ancient constructions and, very likely, canals and agricultural fields too, has rebuilt the oasis in times of colonial friction. Synthesis of Chapter 5 In this Chapter we have shown how the domestic compounds were built and defined through the fixed and restricted nature of the access to the agricultural resources -water and land. This is not a metaphor at all; the technical principles of irrigation agriculture were transformed into generative principles of domestic compounds. This way, as two canals cannot cross each other without merging their waters, the boundaries of the different domestic units got drawn between them. Compact cores of rooms and patios were located by the exact places where each irrigation mini-system entered the terrace, which thus ceased to be just a structure of water catchment and transportation, so to become a structure of distribution of resources. Even though it is possible to suggest that some compounds grew more than others, that other ones fission, and others settled in less favourable areas, each one of the domestic cells follows the same ‘hydraulic’ principles. That is precisely why they have been described as cells, because they are independent units forming a whole through their combination.

In the long term, through successive, no longer ritual but daily, repetitive, almost imperceptible depositions, the interior of the house reveals itself as core of domesticity. The practice of digging pits following specific spatial patterns, extracting the sediment out of them, sometimes lighting bonfires in them, and filling them up again with sediments, ashes, and different kinds of refuses, might have been a way of getting rid of the rubbish in general, but it also might have been a way of storing specific objects -the pits being filled up again once these were taken out or reused-, or a practice that was related to other unknown practices. Anyhow, it is possible to state that this was a practice that answered to a really ancient, repeated, and remembered pattern of use of the inner space: all the pits were dug throughout period 1 of occupation of the house, between the fifth and ninth centuries A.D. The more than seventy observed episodes of digging and filling up of pits -maybe just a fraction of all the pits dug in both rooms-, distributed throughout the long period of occupation of the site, have been a usual routinarian -though not necessarily daily- practice that answered to a pattern of use of space equally lasting. The same way, the deposition of objects related to daily

Habitational cores, the most physically and visually restricted spaces of the domestic units, were built as monuments, that is, so that they were highly visible and long-lasting. Built with double-lined stone walls, they contain many earlier refuses, that is, previous to their construction. In our detailed case, TC1, we have been able to observe, besides, that the building of the house as monument included ritual depositions that reinforced domestic relationships. Among these deposits on the floors and inside the walls, there were pit fillings with 157

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA oasis of Tebenquiche Chico. Its agricultural logic, the monumentality of the house, the sedimentation of the domestic practices in its interior, and the restricted representations of the objects of appropriation reinforce and refer to domesticity as the dominant relationship.

productive practices between the stones of the inner walls and the straws of the roofs turned the inner space of the house into a shell covered by the daily sedimentation of the refuses of domestic practices. Each time one of such sedimentation practices was performed, the existence of previous pits, and other similar objects already deposited in the holes of the walls or between the straws of the roof, made the inscription of such particular action inside a long-term pattern evident, even when the pattern of use of the inner domestic space as a whole was not kept in mind. It was the refuses of daily domestic activities the ones that were deposited in pits, walls, and roofs: pot shreds, camelid bones, stone debitages and artefacts, fragments of andesite spade blades, etc. form the inventory of such deposits.

This Chapter has also included chronometric data and its discussion. This has allowed a chronologic interpretation of the history of domestic unit TC1 and Tebenquiche Chico oasis as a whole. Now, if we think in the long history of domesticity in Tebenquiche Chico oasis, we will promptly notice that it cannot, despite how persuasive and lasting it could have been, explain its long-term reproduction just by itself. The same as a domestic unit becomes self-contradictory when it intends its own reproduction throughout time -because it needs other domestic units for getting wives/husbands and produce descendants-, domesticity as dominant metapattern, from a diachronic perspective, can only be ideological, that is, a false representation of reality. The boundaries of the different domestic units, no matter how material, firm, and enduring they might have been, had had to be vulnerable in order to allow alliances, descendants, and ancestors. In the following Chapter we will analyze the elements that will allow understanding how the domestic was transcended into the conformation of a village scale of social interaction.

Finally, it was also seen that the house was not only built as monument and lived as sediment; in its extreme of spatial exclusion -the inner room-, depictions of camelids in relationship with other beings were also included. The depictions of these animals, whose access could be shared or restricted depending if they were vicuñas or llamas, were made and used inside a materially restricted space. It is not possible to establish if the depictions represent domestic llamas, wild vicuñas, or some other formula; it is not possible either to determine if the objects of such representations were considered objects of appropriation of particular social units or if they were considered objects of shared access. What we can know, nonetheless, is that the locus of the depictions, since it was the material extreme of extra-domestic social exclusion, was related to the content of such depictions, that is, camelidsin-relationship. Thus, beyond the particular social relationships developed around the appropriation of camelids, context and content of these pictographs constitute a discourse about their domestic appropriation. That is, even if the assumed actual camelids that wanted to be depicted on the walls of room TC1A2 were not object of social relationships of property, the fact of them being represented on those walls -the most inner domestic space- implied a discourse about camelids that was materially restricted to the domestic unit. And, besides, the fact that the objects of the representations inside the locus of maximum exclusion and domestic privacy were camelids-in-relationship shows the relevance of the regulation of the access to the discourses about them. Maybe the discoursive pretensions of each domestic unit were not concordant and, thus, a space of restricted access was needed in order to give expression to such representations; it is hard to know. But, anyhow, the significance of the relationships between the relationships with camelids and the relationships between domestic units is sure clear. What we have intended to emphasize in this Chapter is precisely this characteristic of the house and the domestic compounds in general as scenarios where relationships of domestication reproduce and are reproduced by the relationships of being domesticated. Domesticity as practice and representation becomes the most persuasive, visible, and long-lasting meta-pattern in the structuration of the daily life and long history of the 158

Chapter 6

The Oasis Beyond the Domestic “You finally arrive to the obliged rest: an oasis. Do you believe that, fortunately, it is a piece of picturesque land as those that Holmberg has so lively described in his notable conferences? What disenchantment!” (Daniel Cerri, El territorio de Los Andes) Some of the empirical evidences presented in Chapter 5 remark the importance of the domestic scale in the construction of the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico. Domestic compounds, following a pattern of cellular growth alongside the lines of appropriation of agricultural resources, are defined as space of social units of production and reproduction throughout the long period in which the valley was occupied. For a start, it might seem that the mere accretion of domestic cells would be enough for explaining the formation of the village social scale of the oasis. This assumption becomes reinforced by the agglomeration of domestic cells: each one of them is located on a more or less levelled ‘floor’ or, more accurately, each one of them obtains its altimetric level from the slope of the irrigation canal that takes water to its agricultural fields. This way, like superposed layers with an elongated settlement shape determined by the orientation of the canals over the topography, each domestic compound is located above or below its immediate neighbours. One domestic compound aside another, they form, as a whole, a core of greater occupation density that can be interpreted as a village. The comparison of surface pottery assemblages of habitational cores of different domestic compounds with the pottery of the preliminary sequence elaborated out of TC1’s stratigraphic and chronometric information supports the interpretation according to which there has been a long period of occupation in almost all the compounds which, at the same time, might have very likely been contemporary.1 Hence, Tebenquiche Chico would have been a village oasis integrated by the accretion of peasant domestic cells.

that, necessarily, the social relationships of a domestic unit are not the same after a generation. The need of looking for spouses outside the family unit implies that relationships of consanguinity and descent imply the reduction of alliance relationships. Heritance rules (patrimony) entail marriage rules (matrimony). This implies that, in the long term, the different domestic units will not be able to be considered within a sole line of descent unless a cultural construction of the ancestry occurs (Meillassoux 1990). The very long duration of, not only the domestic pattern as such but, also, the houses inserted in the agricultural landscape of the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico, points out towards the cultural nature of such construction and, hence, it must be understood as representation of domesticity. From a historical perspective, such representation of domesticity acts as long-term structure. Within this framework, the monumentalization of the domestic acts, materially, as occultation of such impossibility of self-sufficiency.

But it is necessary to notice that, the same way as the domestic pattern of the settlement included most of the visible empirical evidence, other series of not so visible evidences do not seem to be so directly plausible of being included. At the same time, the interpretation of the village oasis as accretion of autonomous domestic cells cannot answer, by itself, to certain theoretical interrogations that are no longer raised by production strategies, but by peasant reproduction ones. Theoretically, it is not possible to think in long-term reproduction of self-sufficient domestic units. This means

Three are the groups of underground burial chambers that were surveyed (Figure 6.1). One of them, TC38 -which Krapovickas named “third cemetery” whilst he concentrated his fieldwork there-, is located on the left terrace, at about 100 m from the ravine. There are twentythree opened underground burial chambers in TC38, all of them with stone walls and fake vault roofs built with large slabs (Figure 6.2). TC40, where the first chamber opened by Weisser in 1923 is placed, is located on the same terrace but even more towards the south, where the concentration of domestic occupations diminishes. Six burial chambers were registered there (Figure 6.3). Another group of burial chambers, TC39 -where Weisser excavated his second tomb-, is located, though with much more dispersion than the previous one, on the upper right terrace. Nine underground burial chambers of the same general type and other three probable chambers were recorded in this group (Figure 6.4). The three groups of

Apart from this theoretical interrogation raised by the structure of domestic reproduction, there is another kind of structures that are not directly reducible to the domestic. They are groups of underground burial chambers, or what Krapovickas called cemeteries (1955). From a spatial point of view, the three groups of underground burial chambers that were surveyed are located outside the domestic pattern. That is, their spatial disposition is nor understandable neither explainable through the development of the agricultural logic through which the settlement and growth of domestic cells have been described.

1 Which, nonetheless, does not imply that all the compounds would have monolithically been occupied and unoccupied at once, or that there were not any occupied compounds when most of them were not (as it could have been the case of TC27 before the rest, and TC32 towards the end of period 2), or that there were not any unoccupied compounds while the rest was being used (as it could have been the case of TC30 during early stages).

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Figure 6.1: Location of groups of underground burial chambers of Tebenquiche Chico. Relative altitude (0 m contour-line ca. 3650 m asl).

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Figure 6.2: Group of underground burial chambers TC38. The general aspect of the land is southwards.

Figure 6.3: Group of underground burial chambers TC40.

161

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA burial chambers are disposed around the stripes occupied by domestic compounds. Group of burial chambers TC39 is beyond the last canals, but TC38, though clearly located to the east of the stripe that is occupied by compact cores of domestic compounds, is crossed by two canals -the second one running eastwards. On its side, TC40 is to the south of the area with greater density of domestic occupations. The partial superposition of TC38 and a group of structures to the east of domestic compound TC27 could indicate a probable sequence. This group of structures is formed by two round rooms surrounded by a west-east canal to the north, and by a second canal -that starts with south direction but then straights back to the east- to the west and to the south. This second canal seems to continue beyond the east, through the south of group of burial chambers TC38. TC27 might have been abandoned when the use of TC38 increased; the canals might have been built afterwards, in order to surround the burial chambers. TC40 and TC7 seem to present a similar case. The apparent superposition of groups of underground burial chambers TC38 and TC40 with, respectively, structures of TC27 and TC7 seems to point out towards one of the main features of Tebenquiche Chico’s burial pattern: its invisibility. In fact, all the underground burial chambers that were detected in Tebenquiche Chico -every single one of those that integrate each one of the three described groups plus some isolated underground burial chambers found at higher altitudes-, the same as all the tombs that were observed in other valleys of the Antofalla area, belong to the same basic type. They are underground chambers with stone walls and fake vault roofs built with slabs (Figure 6.5). Oscillating between

Figure 6.4: Group of underground burial chambers TC39.

Figure 6.5: Underground burial chamber of TC38. Notice the architectonic details of walls and roof.

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Figure 6.6: Picture of an underground burial chamber of TC39 taken by Muniz Barreto’s expedition of 1923. The following appears written: “Quebr. Tebenquicho chico: la boca de una sepultura hueca”. That the visibility of burial chambers depends on the fact that they are open (“empty”) or not can be clearly seen in this picture. La Plata Museum Collection.

possible to relate the archaeological burial contexts that were found inside them to the map. This is because the burial contextual finds do not refer with accuracy the location of each studied chamber. Even though Volters and Weisser as well as Krapovickas offered sketches of Tebenquiche Chico valley with the general disposition of the three groups of burial chambers, the scale and detail of such drawings do not allow reconstructing the exact location of each one of the finds. It is possible, instead, to assign each find the authors made to its respective group of burial chambers. Therefore, each burial context is named with the abbreviation that corresponds to the group of structures plus an alphanumeric code that denotes the author and the tomb according to the order of exposition in the respective texts (Weisser 1923, and Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000; Krapovickas 1955). The code for Weisser and Volters’ finds is W, and the code for Krapovickas’ is K. These contexts are not to be found in the detailed map, but each one of the groups of burial structures with their opened chambers -some of which might correspond to the ones previously excavated- do appear.

0.2 m and a little bit more than 1 m, the external side of the roof is always below the floor level. In any case, and even though none of these burial chambers was found completely intact, it is presumable that, if closed and except under strong erosive conditions, they were almost invisible in the surface. Krapovickas, who found and excavated some of these chambers, insisted on the fact that they were not visible in the surface (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000; Krapovickas 1955). On his side, Weisser wrote quite the opposite first, but it should be noticed that he was referring to opened chambers (Figure 6.6; Weisser 1923, in Haber 2000). A second feature of Tebenquiche Chico’s burial pattern is its long continuity: there are burial chambers with early contexts -including, for example, Black Polished San Pedro cylindrical beakers- as well as with colonial contexts -footed Caspinchango pots and Venetian glass beads. Regrettably, the available data for analysing this burial pattern -just Weisser’s and Krapovickas’ recordsis extremely partial and short. The only excavated tomb recently recorded is, precisely, the only one that is completely different to the general burial pattern. Next, the different available records of underground burial chambers will be described and the burial pattern characterized. Afterwards, this data will be compared with the only case that is clearly different, the burial in TC1A1. This will allow inferring the social implications of the observed ritual practices in reference to the oasis scale, not only at a spatial scale any longer, but at the scale of local groups of interaction. In order to do this, it is necessary to discuss Krapovickas’ hypothesis regarding the ritual context of unfired pottery painting.

Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC38: The twenty-three burial chambers that were surveyed in this group have walls and roofs built with big andesite slabs vertically and horizontally disposed. Some of them also have big boulders, similar to those that were used for the construction of houses, patio divisions, agricultural terraces, kanchas (enclosed fields), and canals (Figure 6.2).2 The diameter of the chambers oscillates around a mean of 1.5 m, and the internal height of the roofs is a

The Underground Burial Chambers Although the conducted surveys allowed identifying the exact location of each one of the burial chambers, it is not

2

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See Haber 2000.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA little lower than 1 m.3 Since most of them are oval, Krapovickas considered the chambers were oriented in relation to their longer axis. He discarded, nonetheless, the possibility of these having a predominant orientation as a whole. A detailed observation of the underground burial chambers of this group confirms Krapovickas’ statement, though it is quite likely that there are certain architectural features, besides shape, according to which orientation might be interpreted. For example, in some of the chambers, it is possible to observe a standing stone that is bigger than the rest, and its location might well be a hint for interpreting orientation.4 Krapovickas thought he had seen a squared wall tomb in the wall of tomb III (tomb TC38K3), but it could have also been a wall fall (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000).

Krapovickas considered the last two chambers he dug were intact. The measures he gave for chamber K5 are 1.4 m (longest diameter -north-south orientation-), 1.2 m (shortest diameter), and 0.9 m (height). In its interior, he found two bodies sitting on the floor with their legs folded, one next to the other, with their backs leaning on the southern wall and, hence, ‘looking’ towards the north -though their skulls were fallen and/or detached (Figure 6.7). Beside the body that was placed to the east of the chamber -that is, between the body and the wall-, he found fragments of a wooden artefact, squashes, basketry -including a little basket with remains of food in it-, a jar, two pitchers, two pipes, a little cup, a sub-cylindrical beaker, and two bowls. Over this body, he found a crescent-shaped gold sheet hanging pectoral (Figure 6.14). Between both bodies, he found a face-modelled beaker, little leather bags, and pigment loafs. In front of the second body, there was a little jar, and between the body and the western wall of the chamber, there were a pitcher with a broken edge, a sub-cylindrical beaker, and a bowl. Two pentagonal beads, fragments of copper artefacts, a copper needle, and fragments of a wooden stick were found over this body. Other finds were bone remains, a 0.3 m long little stick, wooden bowls, little branches, and copper ‘wire’.

Krapovickas explored four already sacked chambers. In chamber K1, of east-west orientation and already opened when Krapovickas visited it, he found a cylindrical beaker, four bowls, necklace beads, fragments of a pipe, and a fragment of mica shale. It would have served for holding at least two bodies, pretty likely resting on the southern wall since he found both skulls in this sector. A copper fragment and a wooden little stick seem to have been part of the burial goods.

Chamber K6 was almost circular -1.3 m diameter, 0.85 m height-, and presented a northwest-southeast orientation. Nonetheless, and because of the round shape of the tomb, establishing a bigger axis would not have been possible, for what it should be assumed that Krapovickas, in order to describe the orientation of the chamber, must have been guided by some other non explicit criterion such as some secondary architectural trait as the one suggested above, or the orientation of the body inside the room. Inside the chamber, he found only one body, apparently in the same position than the previous ones though perhaps quite towards the right, with its back leaning on the south-eastern extreme. Between the body and the eastern wall, he found two bowls, one reddish and the other one black. And by the western wall, he found several sub-cylindrical beakers; the number was not recorded. Fragments of copper, a little golden blade, and necklace beads were found over the body (Figure 6.8).

In chamber K2, also oriented east to west, Krapovickas found, despite the tomb had already been sacked, three cylindrical beakers, a pipe, a jar, and remains of copper and mica. Even though he observed fragmented bone remains, he did not record the probable number of individuals or their possible position. In K3, with the same orientation than the previous burial chambers, Krapovickas found a beaker, necklace beads, a stone object, and a little leather bag with non-analysed material in it. He observed remains of three adult individuals but he did not record their positions. Initially, he believed the tomb was intact, but later on he concluded it had been sacked, basing himself on the observation of a square opening in the roof. Yet, it is also true that the opening -maybe some internal crumbling or other alteration of the original disposition- might have also been produced when the second and/or third bodies were deposited inside the chamber, or perhaps when some kind of ritual action after the primary deposition and original closure of the chamber took place.

Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC40: Like TC38, it is located on the left terrace of the valley, by the side of the ravine that comes down to the water course, to the south of the area of greater occupation density. It is formed by two groups of three chambers each. The northern group is partially superposed to TC7, so it is pretty likely that this domestic compound and area of underground burial chambers TC40 were not in use at the same time. In fact, both are little developed and their limits are quite unclear if compared to other groups of burial chambers and domestic compounds. One possibility is that TC40, which is located at the margin of the most populated agricultural occupation, was abandoned when TC7 was built, probably as part of an

K4 had three fragments of a cylindrical beaker inside. Krapovickas considered it already sacked, and he did not offer any information regarding number or disposition of individuals in its interior.

3 Nonetheless, the interior of these chambers was not cleaned in order to verify the actual level of the floor, which is generally covered by abundant thin sediment deposited there by action of the wind. 4 Though it would be necessary, in order to explore this possibility, to proceed with the cleaning of the sediment deposited inside the chambers and survey their architecture in detail.

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Figure 6.7: Drawings made by P. Krapovickas as part of his field notes while he was describing his Find V (TC38K5). Above and to the left, elevation drawing of the disposition of the finds inside the chamber. Below and to the left, elevation drawing of the bodies; the skeleton to the right has a “stick” by its side. Above and to the right, schematic section of the location of the profile bodies. Below and to the right, elevation of the architecture of the chamber. Ethnographic Museum Archives (UBA).

Figure 6.8: Drawings made by P. Krapovickas as part of his field notes while describing his Find VI (TC38K6). Ethnographic Museum Archives (UBA).

expansion of the agricultural and social system and that, hence, the exact location of the burial chambers was not accurately known then. The second group of chambers is located at the foot of sediment remnants from the bottom of the valley that were not eroded by the water course, and that are disposed as a buttress that comes out westwards (Figure 6.3).

In this sector, Weisser and Volters opened a more or less circular subterranean chamber (W1), of 1 m shortest diameter and 1.2 m longest diameter, located next to the side of the ravine that comes down to the river. In its interior, there was a skeleton of a single individual, sitting on the floor with its legs folded. The body had been placed leaning its back against the south-eastern wall of

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Figure 6.9: Drawing of underground burial chamber of TC40, excavated by Muniz Barreto’s expedition of 1923. From his field notes, La Plata Museum Collection.

opposite directions and with their heads leaning on the south-eastern extreme. Next to the body that had been placed in the north-eastern half of the chamber, between the body and the wall, there was a Caspinchango footed pot, and over the body, a wooden bow. Between the second body and the wall, they found a Caspinchango footed pot, a plain pink bowl, a spindle whorl, and some other objects. The second just mentioned Caspinchango footed pot, shreds of the pink bowl, the spindle whorl, fragments of the bow, and some necklace beads, all coming from this chamber, were identified at the Museum of La Plata (Figure 6.10).

the chamber, so it ‘looked’ towards the northwest. To the right of the body, there were two bowls, one of them with little handles, and a ceramic pipe in whose furnace a facemodelled representation had been incised and painted. To the left of the body, they found a bowl with little handles that contained big shreds from the modelled neck and border of a big pot, a little irregular footed cup, two subcylindrical jars with handles, a sub-cylindrical beaker, a pitcher with everted rim and two little handles attached to the lip (all these pieces were first conserved by Muniz Barreto and, afterwards, by the Museum of La Plata), and a bigger pot that the explorers did not pick up (Figure 6.9).

The Burial Pattern: Memory and Ritual Action Group of Underground Burial Chambers TC39: Underground burial chambers, of sub-circular shape built with vertically disposed stone boulders (generally grey andesite slabs), and roofed with other slabs disposed as fake vault, constitute the general tomb type. Over the stone roof that closes every chamber, sediment got accumulated until reaching the level of the surrounding floor. The building of chambers has been obviously preceded by the excavation of the natural soil, and the joints between the stones of walls and roof were filled with a clayey plaster. This way, underground chambers were left sealed, including the body or bodies that had been disposed there, and a variety of objects. Judging by the presence of chambers with more than one body, it is quite likely that these were reopened to celebrate new burials, although synchronic burials of two or more bodies are equally probable. At the same time, and even though there are not clear evidences on this, the possibility of chambers being reopened for some kind of periodic ritual that did not necessarily imply the incorporation of additional bodies to the chamber cannot

This group of underground chambers is located on the western slope of the valley, on a plain that is formed at its medium height. The chambers that were surveyed there are not as concentrated as TC38 and TC40. In front of TC38, beside the slope break that delimits the plain from the east, there is a burial chamber and, going up towards the west, there are two other chambers and what looks like two more quite damaged chambers. Towards the south, also near the slope break, two other burial chambers were revealed, and, even more to the south, already in front of TC40, they found three more chambers and another possible one that is severely damaged. There are nine underground chambers in total, twelve if the probable ones are added (Figure 6.4). The architecture answers to the same general type described for TC38. By the eastern slope break of this plain, Weisser and Volters found an intact tomb, W2. Chamber W2 contained two flexed bodies that had been laterally disposed -right and left side respectively-, back against back, looking in 166

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Figure 6.10: Drawing of underground burial chamber of TC39, excavated by Muniz Barreto’s expedition of 1923. From his field notes, La Plata Museum Collection.

built and used for the burying ritual. On the contrary, it is quite probable that consecutive ritual practices, including the addition of new bodies and, pretty likely, new objects, were related to an extended ritual use of underground tombs. Although there is no direct evidence of this, it is possible that the observation troubles Krapovickas mentioned in his field notebook were generated by this fact. When describing Find III (TC38K3), he wrote: “When it was discovered, it seemed intact, but when the earth was swept away, an almost square opening of approximately 50 cm per side appeared” (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000). Regarding the excavation of Find VI (TC38K6), he wrote: “Almost at the surface, at about 20 or 30 cm deep, we found a tiny piece of bone, what took us to assume the burial had been profaned. Then, thinner earth and less stony grounds appeared and, finally, just thin earth” (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000). Chamber TC38K5, besides, and although it had been found closed by Krapovickas, presented evidences

be discarded either. In other Andean regions, tombs sometimes present markings that allow their visualization (Rowe 1995). This way, in the Atacama basin, some burials have been characterized as tombs ‘con taco’, that is, with an algarrobo standing pole pointing out the location of the tomb (Tarragó 1989). Other burial patterns emphasise the high visibility of their tombs through their monumentalization, like the late chullpas of the northern Altiplano (Arellano López and Kujis Meruvia 1986; Isbell 1997), and the Mapuche cuel (Dillehay 1995). Finally, there are patterns that include major variability in the conditions of visibility of their funerary architecture, as the Moche case (Donnan 1995). In other cases, instead, the location of the burial chambers has an apparently invisible nature (Brown 1995; Carmichael 1995; Rowe 1995). Such is the case of Tebenquiche Chico. The invisibility of underground burial chambers does not necessarily imply they were abandoned once they were 167

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA been meaningfully oriented there as part, thus, of a burial pattern -meaning by burial pattern, the scripting of ritual practice.5

of internal crumblings and possible withdrawals of objects (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000). Even though the unfortunately little quantity of known records on burial chambers does not allow establishing patterns of ritual disposition of bodies and objects, it is possible to make some observations. Regrettably, there is not any data regarding age and genre of the buried individuals, and there are only records on a small bunch of cases (ca. 10% of the total surveyed chambers) regarding quantity and position of bodies. These cases are K5 and K6 in TC38, W1 in TC40, and W2 in TC39 though there is some information on K1 and K3 (TC38) too. Although a hypothesis, based just on the available data, where these known cases would represent the general pattern can be hardly stated, this is all the information there is, and, since the other chambers have been opened without any field record and by nonprofessional researchers, the missing information should not be expected to be recovered (Lyon 1995). Thus, it does not seem possible to make a more detailed interpretation of the burial pattern. Nevertheless, and knowing, of course, that this is a pretty small sample of the historically existent and mainly lost range of total variations, something can be said regarding the variability the record shows (Rowe 1995).

The bodies deposited in chamber TC39W2, instead, were found laterally placed, without any coherent orientation; in fact, they were looking in opposite directions. This tomb, besides and unlike the remaining three and other four partially re-excavated by Krapovickas, is the only one that contained really late or early colonial materials. Another extra possible difference might be the fact that TC38 and TC40 are located on the left terrace, at the margins of the agricultural occupation of Tebenquiche Chico, while TC39 is located on the plain that is formed in the middle of the right slope, beyond the agricultural limits (Figure 6.1). Nonetheless, it is convenient not to include the topographic location as a relevant variable until the effect of agricultural expansions throughout time can be calibrated, and not to extend temporal assignations that come up from the interpretation of a little known sample to the rest of the chambers of each group of burial chambers either. It is possible, instead, that the observed differences regarding the disposition of the bodies -plus the differences between the associated objects-, do reflect a variation of ritual burial patterns. Hence, the known common traits of the different underground burial chambers -excluding TC39W2- will be considered as if they were parts of the burial pattern of period 1 of settlement of the oasis. Although this would be certainly risky to state taking into account that there is only detailed information on one case, TC39W2 might represent a burial pattern of Tebenquiche Chico’s period 3.

When comparing TC38K5 (Figure 6.7), TC38K6 (Figure 6.8), and TC40W1 (Figure 6.9) on one side, to TC39W2 (Figure 6.10) on the other, a first difference comes straight up. It is a feature that, even though it does not affect the architectural pattern and, hence, it cannot be inferred in those cases of non registered opened chambers, indicates different ways of disposing the bodies. Both bodies in TC38K5, and both single bodies in TC38K6 and TC40W1, were placed in a sitting position, with their legs folded, and probably with the arms on the chest. The bodies in TC38K5 ‘looked’ northwards, and the bodies in TC38K6 and TC40W1, towards the northwest. From groups TC38 and TC40, the summits of the mountain, often snowed, are oriented in north/northwest direction. It is probable, hence, that one burial pattern implied placing the bodies in a sitting position, leaning their backs against the wall of the chamber, and, perhaps, ‘looking’ to the mountain. This last issue is related to the known Andean symbolism of mountains that has been profusely described in ethnohistoric and ethnographic literature (Martínez 1989). It is possible that the orientation of the bodies was directed towards the origin of those water courses from which domestic units took water through irrigation mini-systems, which, at the same time and as we have already stated, defined them productively and architecturally. Within this cultural context, the snowed summits of the mountain might have well been coherent as spots of orientation for the sight of the dead. Nonetheless, it is advisable not to interpret any particular symbolism despite it does not seem outrageous to think that summits of mountains could have been a significant point of orientation to the inhabitants of the valley of Tebenquiche Chico and that the dead could have

The extremely long period in which the same general burial pattern, in conditions of invisibility of previous tombs, existed during period 1 of occupation of the oasis, seems to point out a scenario where repeated practices related to tombs and social memory of such practices would have been conjugated. Since the exact location of a chamber was not directly visible, the knowledge of its existence must have been kept in the memory of all or some of the individuals that had been involved in previous rituals. And, since we are dealing with strongly scripted practices, the tendency to reproduce the material pattern of the ritual would have been reinforced. That is, the acting out of the ritual of placing the dead could have implied the execution of scripted practices, whose shape was controlled by a superior or terrifying being, which could have been the dead itself or its spirit. The powerfully dangerous nature of the death ritual might have been a stimulus to the correct observance of such scripted practices. But, since invisibility would not have allowed a direct imitation of previous material practices through the observation of their remains,6 the correct observance could have only been based on the social 5

This concept will be widely developed next. And the metaphor defining ritual as scripted does not imply that actual ‘Scriptures’ could be observed… 6

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THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC skills and practical knowledge that were needed for carrying out the funerary rituals ‘literally’, following the norms of general location, architecture, body and object disposition, and strategies of invisibility. The reproduction of such memory related to a material practice implies, therefore, the definition of the intervenient social unit (Gosden and Lock 1998). That is to say, if the long-lasting nature of the burial pattern throughout the entire period 1 of occupation of the valley implies the existence and reproduction of a ritual memory regarding which norms to follow and how to accomplish that, such memory could have only been actualized in each particular burial event. Only those individuals that had taken part in each burial ritual event would have had the actual chance of reproducing such memory, that is, the possibility of remembering ritual practices. None of the features of the burial pattern could have been known beyond the control that those that had participated in previous rituals had, for that pattern was, primarily, invisible (Moore 1996). The participants of burial rituals did not only look after the detailed observance of ritual practices but, and above all, made themselves sure of not leaving visible traces of the materiality of such practices. The ritual knowledge of death might have been a truly hidden knowledge and, in this sense, a practice that was socially restricted to those integrants of local groups that had been able to take part in former rituals. The apparently homogeneous burial pattern of period 1 is evidence, by itself, of the fact that the scripted has been observed, and, at the same time, that the ritual memory and definition of the local group have implied each other mutually throughout time.

memory of the participation in preceding rituals. This way, the definition of the social group that takes part in a funerary ritual becomes the key dimension for understanding the really long-lasting nature of a burial pattern that was inaccessible to direct observation. This becomes reinforced, besides, if we take into account that, in a demographically reduced society such as the one that might have inhabited the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico, deaths should not have been as frequent as to turn the burying practice a daily event. The continuance of the ritual inside each particular chamber during a longer period than the one immediately posterior to the death might have integrated the group of burial practices that allowed the reproduction of the mortuary pattern too. In such a scenario, in the long term, the memory of the exact limits between the different underground burial chambers might have been lost (Brown 1995; Carmichael 1995). In this sense, it is not absolutely accurate to talk about cemeteries. That is, they would not have been delimited areas that served as place of deposit of bodies but, instead, they would have been formed through the progressive addition of new burial chambers, and the abandonment and oblivion of others. Perhaps, if we look at it from a synchronic point of view, only some burial chambers of each compound were ritually used and kept in the social memory. This, furthermore, would explain the possibility of superposition between areas of burial chambers and non-burial structures. Throughout the lifetime of a generation, the location of particular burial chambers can be understood appealing to the memory of those individuals that would have taken part in former burial rituals, even though those chambers do and did not have any special visual demarcations. In the long term, instead, and mainly because of their non visible or abandoned nature, the location of particular burial chambers might have been lost. At the same time, the reproduction of the burial pattern throughout the entire long period 1 of occupation of the valley implies certain continuity in the occupation of the involved groups, at least some of them. Even though it is absolutely possible that the entire range of burial chambers that were built and used throughout the whole history of the oasis was not known at a particular moment, the ways in which they were built must have been transmitted through the group memory of the participants of former rituals, maybe through the imitation of previously built though contemporaneously ritually used chambers.

The Dissimilar Tomb The analysis of the funerary pattern of the oasis would not be complete if we do not include all the known cases. Under a big stone that served as entry jamb to room TC1A1, a little tomb that contained the skeleton of a premature newly born was found. In Chapter 5, within the framework of the ritualization of the building of the architectural domestic space, this tomb was described as a building deposit. Beyond the particular circumstances of death of the newly born, its deposition may be considered within the context of the exclusion of domestic products food and offspring- through which these become at the same time reproductive of the social unit, giving a sacrificial trait to the foundation ritual. In this sense, the tomb in TC1A1 is completely different to the rest of the burial chambers found in the valley of Tebenquiche Chico (Figure 5.50).

Summing up, the invisibility of the burial chambers, the really long-lasting nature of their building pattern, the superposition of non-burial structures in the general areas where burial chambers are disposed, the inclusion of more than one body inside each chamber, and the nonvisible delimitation of burial chamber areas, are all elements that necessarily imply the existence of a certain memory of former and/or temporarily lasting burial practices. Such ritual memory must have included the

The tomb in TC1A1 corresponds to the burial of a newly born that very likely died short after its premature birth. It is not an individual that developed his/her social life; he/she did probably not even have time to be incorporated to his/her social group or even to be acknowledged as individual. Although accurate information regarding the age of death of the individuals buried in underground chambers is unavailable, it is clear, through Weisser’s 169

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA and Krapovickas’ records and even though none of them collected bone remains of the three individuals each one of them found, that in all six cases they were at least juvenile individuals. That is to say, the bodies that were deposited in underground burial chambers belonged to individuals that had been very likely acknowledged by their domestic group, incorporated to the descent group, raised within a particular family, and that had developed, to a more or less significant extent, their social life. Instead, the newly born individual was deposited as part of the ritual of foundation of the house. This individual that most probably did not even get to become a social person was deposited at the lintel of the domestic space. Those that had developed their social lives as persons were deposited outside the domestic space after they died. Furthermore, since underground chambers are placed, if looked from the domestic compounds, on segregated areas and, in fact, they are not assignable to any domestic compound in particular, it could be said that the dead were segregated from the domestic unit they were part of, whichever this was.

practically invisible from the surface because they are underneath the floor and do not have any evident markings (Figures 6.5 and 6.6).8 Of course that the possibility of material signs that used to point out the exact location of each tomb though made of perishable materials -which would have, hence, disappeared- always stands. But, yet, the disposition of the burial chambers becomes highly contrasting to the great visibility that results from the monumentalization of the houses. Seeing these differences, there is no question about the fact that the ways of monumentalizing, visualizing, and materially exposing architectural structures positively formed part of the common cultural practices of the inhabitants of the oasis. These were not practiced in the architecture for the dead the same way as they were practiced in the architecture for the living. This has several possible implications. One of them is that the ritual process through which a person was transformed into dead and finally into ancestor, necessarily implied certain knowledge of those material actions ritually sanctioned as correct -and this could have been a materially and socially hidden knowledge. That is, only those individuals that had previously taken part in burial rituals -including the excavation and building of the chamber- would have been able to have the necessary knowledge for reproducing it according to the same ‘scripture’. The social group of potential participants for the building of the chamber, whether it was for the actual construction or as secondary participants, would have been reduced just to those that were living in the valley, that is, the inhabitants of the domestic units. The invisibility of the location of the burial chambers could have then been efficient only to those that were not there, that is, those that did not inhabit the village. The local inhabitants, instead, might have kept memory of the location of former collective practices of building of chambers, disposition of bodies and offerings, closure of chambers and burial of their tops, and other ritual practices. Among them, re-openings of chambers for other ritual practices, and/or for placing a second body, and/or other activities on or around the chambers might have well been also included. In the long term, the memory of the exact location of a particular tomb might have disappeared. Also, the frequency with which rituals related to the specific dead individuals that were buried in there might have declined. But throughout one lifetime, the memory of local inhabitants could have allowed easily visualizing what was invisible for the non-local, creating the possibility of manipulating the inclusion and exclusion of potential integrants of newer ritual practices (Moore 1996).

The same way the newly born can be interpreted upon the basis of its spatial and social location as infra-domestic and, from there on, its sacrificial nature can be thought of -that is, it does not get to become what he/she naturally was supposed to become: a person-, the burials in underground chambers can be considered as supradomestic. The assumption upon which this interpretation is based could be expressed the following way: the choreography of dead at Tebenquiche Chico is related to cultural concepts regarding stages of life.7 But such assumption, together with the interpretation that is based upon it, would be reduced to a triviality if it was not incorporated to the discussion of the social dimension that is capable of transforming it in a process interpretation. The Construction of the Ancestors The social relevance of cultural concepts regarding stages of life and death lies upon the fact that social relationships of descent are built and reproduced through such concepts and through the material objects -including new and old bodies- and ritual practices that are related to them. These relationships allow the construction of kinship groups through which matrimonial and patrimonial circulations will be regulated. This means that it is through the transformation of a person into ancestor that the construction of a descent group that will be able to acknowledge itself as common becomes possible (Isbell 1997). In the case of Tebenquiche Chico, this implies the ‘invisibility’ with which burial chambers were built. These have stone walls and roofs and, thus, were built to last, the same as, for example, houses. But, differently from houses, patios, standing stones, enclosed fields, agricultural terraces, and canals, they are

The process of creation of ancestors and the delimitation of a common descent group, whether this was real or fictitious, must have been accomplished through the collective participation in the ritual of the ancestral dead

7 As it could also be said about many other societies, for example, ours (Parker Pearson 1993; Richards 1993).

8 Even when the tops of some chambers might have become visible due to the effect of erosion (Haber 2000).

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THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC (Vincent 1995). This might have been regulated by the conservation and manipulation of a hidden knowledge (meaning non public or open) closely related to the integration of the local group. Having this in mind, the qualitative difference between domestic space and space of underground burial chambers becomes meaningful. Domestic spaces, as closed and self-sufficient as they could seem looking at their architecture and spatial disposition, must have included, besides those references to descent relationships, references to alliance relationships. Ancestral funerary spaces, on the contrary, must have acknowledged consanguinity relationships better than alliance relationships.9 The reproduction of ones could have implied the others and vice versa, for none of both spaces would have become socially selfsufficient if it had not implied the other one.

The assignation of the pottery from Krapovickas’ collection to defined wares from the analysis of the material excavated in TC1 is one of variable accuracy, because, for a start, those pieces with fresh fractures are more easily analyzed than other complete pieces. Besides, the thickness of the layer of unfired painting on the external surfaces and, in several cases, on the fractures too, adds up another difficulty to macroscopic observation. Thus, the assignation of pieces from burial contexts to defined wares from domestic contexts can be considered a measurement of minimum pottery association between both types of context. Anyway, it is impossible to measure the actual correspondence between contexts of chambers K1 to K4 if we take into account that all these chambers would have been opened by excavators before Krapovickas -who would have only limited himself to collect the remaining pieces- and, therefore, the total pottery assemblage of each one of them is unknown. In contexts K5 and K6, due to the additional difficulties just mentioned above, the assignation still is, though a little bit more accurate, only a minimum. Subsequently, we describe the established associations.

Some lines of evidence give support to the previous hypothetic discussion. One of them is the already mentioned really long-lasting nature of the burial pattern of period 1 of occupation of the valley. Also developed above, another complementary line is the clear contrast between domestic architecture and funerary architecture in what regards their visibility. This line of evidence is based upon the assumption that houses and chambers were used at a same time. Any assertion of strict contemporaneity is difficult to demonstrate from archaeological data. Nevertheless, it is possible in this case to bring support to the contemporaneity hypothesis if the correspondence between the wares included in domestic contexts and those found in funerary contexts is accepted as evidence.

Underground chamber TC38K1 contained a cylindrical beaker, four bowls, fragments of a pipe, and most likely other pieces that would have been collected before Krapovickas’ field work. From Krapovickas’ collection of this chamber, the cylindrical beaker, three bowls, and what could probably be the fourth one were found, but the fragments of the pipe were not. Among the four pieces that were accurately identified as belonging to K1’s context, the cylindrical beaker was assigned to ware -39-, one bowl to -7-, one to -8-, and the third one could not be assigned. The fourth bowl that is only tentatively

Pottery, Houses, and Tombs We have analysed Krapovickas’ pottery collection from Tebenquiche Chico, which almost entirely comes, except for a little group of shreds collected from the surface, from complete or almost complete pots that belong to burial contexts of underground chambers TC38K1 to K6. The pottery of this collection, in their majority, could be identified and assigned to specific chambers thanks to Krapovickas’ descriptions and red ink markings on the pots’ surfaces (1952 in Haber 2000; 1955). In some cases, the fragmentation or complete lost of these red markings, plus some vagueness in the description of the inventory of each chamber, made the task rather difficult. Furthermore, in some of them, the pieces that were described in the text could not even be found. On the other hand, many pieces were able to be assigned to defined wares thanks to the analysis of the pottery excavated in TC110 (Haber 2000).

or decoration according to the potentiality of conformation of a same theoretical unit, which is, neither the isolated attribute, nor the ceramic type, but the whole pot (Orton et al. 1993). This definition of ware intends to overcome the void between analytical and synthetical approaches to classification, because it implies the analysis of each shred or piece in order to achieve their definition and assignation. It is different from analytical procedures because it does not artificially fragment the technologic and functional unity of the cultural artefact that, in the end, is the whole pot (even though we were talking about groups of shreds). On the other hand, it is different from typological procedures because, since it does not define types at all, it does not assume the scale, internal variability, and sharpness that the demarcation of ceramic types implies. Hence, the theoretical unit is fixed on the pot and to it is where observation units (shreds or whole pots) are referred to. Thus, the existence of established ceramic types is not included in the definition of wares. On the contrary, typicity can be directly inferred from the formal, dimensional, and decorative variation of the actual or theoretical (if we are talking about shreds) pots involved, instead of being assumed -as it is in traditional synthetical approaches- or discarded -as analytical approaches do. This is relevant because each correlation between wares from burial and domestic contexts implies that pottery deposited in both contexts, although they had different shapes, sizes, and decorations, were made in a same way; that is, they share fabric and surface treatment attributes to the extent of being potentially considered as products of a same particular way of making pots and, in the case of shreds, of being parts of a same pot. This implies a much more delimited correspondence than the concept of ceramic type, and a much more real one than the one that results from the comparison of isolated attributes.

9

Though an ambiguity element becomes included because the access to the hidden knowledge through which descent groups would have been ritually defined could have included local allies (spouses born in other oasis or valleys). To a certain extent, the material definition of descent groups could have ended up including allies that, having shared the memory of previous rituals, were redefined as locals. 10 The concept ‘ware’ refers to a kind of pottery that synthesizes fabric and surface treatment characteristics without taking into account shape

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Figure 6.11: Finds of underground burial chamber TC38K1 made by Krapovickas (1955) in 1952. Above and to the left, Black Polished San Pedro -39- cylindrical beaker; above and to the right, bowl -8-; in the centre and to the right, bowl -7-; below and to the left, probable bowl -8-; below and to the right, non-classified bowl. All the pieces show yellow and/or red/pink unfired paintings; the pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance the paintings. Ethnographic Museum Collection (Buenos Aires).

assignable to this chamber is also -8- (Figure 6.11). This allows an association to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1.

with printed dot-shaped decoration on a band applied to the base of the neck (Figure 6.13). It is not possible to assign it because fresh fractures are not visible.

Chamber TC38K2 had, besides other pots that must have probably been collected by excavators previous to Krapovickas, three cylindrical beakers, a jar, and a pipe (Figure 6.12). The five pieces Krapovickas collected could be identified and assigned to specific wares. One of the cylindrical beakers is -3-, and the other two are -39-. The jar was tentatively assigned to ware -40-. The pipe is also -39-. The context of this chamber can be associated to Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 and, if the determination of the jar could be confirmed as -40-, to Chronostratigraphic Event 2.

The three shreds of beaker found in chamber TC38K4 were not individualized in Krapovickas’ collection and, being the only ceramic find of this chamber, it could not be associated. Regarding chamber TC38K5, where Krapovickas collected the whole group of associated objects, a significant part of the pottery assemblage could be individualized (Figure 6.14). Krapovickas found there two non-modelled jars and a little jar with face-modelled neck. One of the first ones is -8-, and the little facemodelled jar is -2-; the other jar was not found, the same as three pitchers and two sub-cylindrical beakers. A lightcoloured cup was individualized thought not assigned.

Krapovickas recovered only one pot in chamber TC38K3: a thin and long neck globular bottle with lateral handles 172

THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC

Figure 6.12: Finds of underground burial chamber TC38K2 made by Krapovickas (1955) in 1952. Above and to the left, sub-cylindrical beaker -3; above and to the right, probable jar -40-; below and to the left, Black Polished San Pedro -39- cylindrical beaker; below and to the right, Black Polished San Pedro -39- pipe (Picture: A. Callegari). All the pieces show yellow and/or red/pink unfired paintings; the pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance the paintings. Ethnographic Museum Collection (Buenos Aires).

Figure 6.13: Finds of underground burial chamber TC38K3 made by Krapovickas (1955) in 1952. The piece shows pink unfired paintings, so the picture has been digitally processed in order to enhance them. Ethnographic Museum Collection (Buenos Aires).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA TC38K5 and the one that was recovered (under the first row of stones of TC1’s eastern wall) from contexts associated to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1 (Figure 5.48).11 Regrettably, Krapovickas did not precise the number of sub-cylindrical beakers he found in chamber TC38K6 (Krapovickas 1952, in Haber 2000; 1955), which, added to the two mentioned bowls, form the entire pottery assemblage of this context (Figure 6.15). Three beakers and two bowls could be located. One beaker and one bowl were assigned to -8-, a beaker to -39-, a bowl to 44-, and the remaining sub-cylindrical beaker could not be assigned to any known ware. Even though the first two wares are present in TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Events 1, 3, 4, 8, and 10, they could be diagnostic of the first one. Ware -44- is not diagnostic of any moment of TC1’s sequence. Table 6.1 sums up the information on the associations between the wares of Krapovickas’ collection from TC38 underground burial chambers, and the pottery from the excavations of TC1’s domestic rooms. As it can be seen, even though the total number of pieces inside each underground chamber is not accurately known -except from K5-, approximately 72 per cent of the pieces of Krapovickas’ collection could be located and assigned.12 In any case, it could be assumed that the unknown factors that made the remaining 28 per cent of the pieces of Krapovickas’ collection to be fragmented or lost are totally independent from the factors that allowed the observed pots to be assigned to specific wares. This way, around 80 per cent of the individualized pots were able to be assigned to known wares upon the basis of the pottery analyses of TC1 and, thus, associated to them. The remaining 20 per cent can be considered a combination of diverse factors, among which we can name the state of visibility of the pot (pots without fragmentation or relatively clean fresh fractures do not allow the observation of fabric, pots with great amounts of unfired painting applications do not allow the observation of surface treatments), and the nonassociation with TC1’s wares. Hence, it can be considered that TC38’s chambers and TC1’s house were, at least partially, coetaneous -within an archaeological understanding of this concept. Or, to put it differently, that during the times when wares -2-, -3-, -7-, -8-, -39-, 40-, and -44- were made, both TC1’s house and TC38’s chambers (at least K1, K2, K5, and K6) were being used. Almost all the remaining domestic compounds were also

Figure 6.14: Finds of underground burial chamber TC38K5 (Figure 6.7) made by Krapovickas (1955) in 1952. To the left, up to down, cup, bowl -3-, jar -8-, and face-modelled jar -2-. To the right, up to down, bowl -8-, sub-cylindrical beaker -2-, gold sheet pendant, non-classified pipe, and pipe -8-. All the ceramic pieces show yellow and/or red/pink unfired paintings, so the pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance them. Ethnographic Museum Collection (Buenos Aires).

The three bowls found in this chamber were located and assigned, one to -8-, and two to -3-. Finally, though the two pipes that corresponded to this context were found, only one could be assigned (-8-). Summing up, only eight out of the fourteen pieces that integrated K5’s ceramic assemblage were located, and only six of them could be assigned to known wares. The assemblage can be associated to TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 3 (though -2- does not integrate such context, it is present in earlier and later moments of the sequence). Nonetheless, it is necessary to notice the extraordinary formal and decorative resemblance between the little face-modelled jar that was found by Krapovickas in burial chamber

11

A third little jar with very similar decoration belongs to the Muniz Barreto collection at the Museum of La Plata. It was obtained from a tomb in Laguna Blanca that, since it regrettably did not contain more than one ceramic piece, does not allow other associative correlations (Figure 6.29bis). 12 The remaining percentage corresponds to pieces that were not found in any of both researches of the material -August 1995 and September 1997.

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Figure 6.15: Finds of underground burial chamber TC38K6 (Figure 6.8) made by Krapovickas (1955) in 1952. Above and to the left, non-classified beaker; above and to the right, beaker -8-; below and to the left, bowl -44-; below and to the right, Black Polished San Pedro -39- beaker. All the beakers show yellow and/or red/pink unfired paintings; the pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance the paintings. Ethnographic Museum Collection (Buenos Aires).

Table 6.1: Frequencies of recollected, localized, and classified ceramic pieces from TC38 underground burial chambers. The assigned wares and the associations to Chrono-stratigraphic Events of TC1 are indicated.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA in use at that time.13 The use of group of underground burial chambers TC38 could be tentatively related to Period 1 of occupation of the oasis, mainly with its first part (Chrono-stratigraphic Events 1 to 3), approximately between mid-fourth and late ninth centuries A.D. Throughout this period of about five centuries, a same way of inhabiting the same houses and using the same burial areas was related to the deposition of wares made in the same ways.

introduce the discussion about Krapovickas’ hypothesis regarding the ritual nature of unfired painting applications on outer surfaces of burial pottery (1968).

But, if the objects with which the scenarios of the burial ritual were built (architecture and deposited goods) are not substantially different from those with which the domestic scenery was constructed and the daily practices were developed (Hill 1996; Wilson 1996), why consider those practices related to the building and use of burial chambers as integrating parts of ritual practices? The Ritual Marking In an interesting intellectual experiment, Keesing asked himself about the definition of ritual, giving counterexamples for every definition that implied the application of specific criterions (repetitiveness, difference from the ordinary, fictionality, etc.). To Keesing, the ritual is not defined by any particular feature but, instead, by a meta-communicative ‘frame’. Such ‘frame’ refers to a whole of meta-communicative premises, that is, premises regarding the messages that are interchanged within the frame. In this sense, the framing of the message ‘this is a ritual’ would be the defining element of the ritual (Keesing 1991). To Keesing, then,

Figure 6.16: Close-up of a fracture on the handle of a jar from TC38K2, where yellow (in light shades) and red (in dark shades) unfired painting applications can be observed; the picture has been digitally processed in order to enhance the painting.

Krapovickas based his hypothesis on his observation of painting remains on the fractures of some of the pots that were deposited inside one of the underground burial chambers (Figure 6.16). Therefore, he was quite likely dealing with slightly fractured domestic pots that had been incorporated as offerings to the burial ritual and on which, as part of that same ritual, unfired painting had been applied. He afterwards added his assertion according to which it was impossible that the two Black Polished San Pedro cylindrical beakers -that most probably came from San Pedro de Atacama since they shared formal characteristics of fabric and surface treatment with the same kind of beakers studied in San Pedro by Tarragó (1968)- had come from San Pedro with unfired painting applications because this was not a feature of the Black Polished San Pedro cylindrical beakers from the Le Paige collections from San Pedro de Atacama: the unfired painting applications would have been added in Tebenquiche (Pedro Krapovickas, personal communication 1995).

“ritual is (…) a genre of communication which, like play, is governed by premises of fictionality, but which, unlike play, is governed by (explicit or implicit) scripting. It is, moreover, canonically based on the premise that the performance is being monitored, judged, and acted upon by unseen spectators, upon whose judgement hang heavy consequences. In that sense, ritual is serious, scripted game. The fictional messages are none the less serious for being fictional: serious precisely because of this monitoring and scriptedness. Even the fictionality of the acts is hierarchically structured. As Bateson argued, the difference between a sacrament and a non-sacramental ritual lies exactly here: the blood which is not blood but wine is nonetheless blood” (Keesing 1991: 63). This definitely does not provide us with the particular meaning of burial rituals. It can, nevertheless, help us understanding the sense of ritual demarcation of that spatial segregation of burial areas respect domestic ones. It can also allow an approximation to the sense of scripting that ritual participation might have had in a context in which the local might have been definitive for the demarcation of the social group that took part in the performance. Keeping this definition in mind, we 13

As it has been previously pointed out, the pottery found by Krapovickas in all the six burial chambers of TC38 is present among TC1’s domestic wares. Nonetheless, the presence of unfired painting applications on the outer surfaces of the pots from burial contexts is remarkably more significant than that on the pottery from domestic contexts. Unfired painting consists on the application of more or less abundant pigment, predominantly light reds and yellows, sometimes covering the whole surface,

See Chapter 5, this volume.

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Figure 6.17: Finds of underground burial chamber TC40W1 (Figure 6.9) made by Muniz Barreto’s expedition (Appendix V) in 1923. Above and to the left, pot fragments that were inside one of the bowls. Above and to the right, pipe with modelled, incised, and painted furnace. In the middle, little glass-shaped pot with flat base (it is not a solid foot). In the centre and to the left and below and in the middle, beakers with remnants of unfired painting applications; these two pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance the paintings. La Plata Museum Collection.

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Figure 6.18: Finds of underground burial chamber TC39W2 (Figure 6.10) Ordinary Caspinchango foot; above and to the right, bowl; in the centre and to the right, bow fragments; below and to the right, probable spindle whorl. La Plata Museum Collection.

Figure 6.19: Potsherds with red ochre applications on their inner faces found in the excavation of TC1. Since the pictures have been digitally processed in order to enhance the visibility of ochre, the areas with lighter spots are those that have been painted. The left fragment on the right picture shows red ochre on the fracture.

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THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC sometimes displayed in two coloured vertical stripes. This substance has not been fixed by high temperatures, for what it is easily removed. The handling of the pieces can cause the removal of part of the pigment, which colours the hands, and it is assumable that washing would greatly deteriorate this kind of decoration. Yet,14 almost all the pots from Krapovickas’ collection show remains of unfired painting. The pots of TC40’s context W1 seem to have been washed at some point; nonetheless, vague remains of unfired painting applications can be seen on the surfaces of some of them (Figure 6.17). The two pieces that came from TC39W2 and could be observed at the Museum of La Plata, instead, do not present any macroscopic traces of paint (Figure 6.18).

Figure 6.20: Second (to the left) and first (to the right) adult vicuña phalanxes with red ochre applications (they can be seen as dark spots) from the excavation of TC1. The picture has been digitally processed.

Out of the thousands of shreds that were excavated from rooms A1 and A2 of domestic compound TC1, only sixteen little shreds present unfired painting applications (Figure 6.19). If wares might have been the same in both domestic and burial contexts but unfired painting applications are only dominant in the second ones, Krapovickas’ hypothesis finds support. Unfired painting applications could have been added to domestic pots before placing them next to the body inside the underground chamber as part of the burial ritual. It is possible that such hypothesis is valid for period 1 of occupation of the oasis.15 It is really difficult to know which the meanings of unfired painting applications might have been. Following Keesing’s proposal for understanding ritual, it could be stated that unfired painting might have contributed to the meta-communicative framing of the ritual genre. The fictitious and scripted nature of ritual action would have needed a frame and a demarcation to establish the genre. And ochre might have well fulfilled that role. In the excavations at TC1, several objects with ochre applications were found. These include bone (Figure 6.20), stone (Figure 6.21), and ceramic (Figure 6.19) objects that were deposited inside the pits excavated on the floor of the house, fragments of andesite spades (Figure 6.22) inserted in the walls, fractured grinding stones that had been recycled as building material, and the inner wall of room TC1A2 itself (See Chapter 5) (Figures 5.64 to 5.77).

Figure 6.21: Basalt tools with red ochre applications (they can be seen as light spots) from the excavation of TC1. The picture has been digitally processed.

Except in the case of the pictographies on TC1A2’s wall, where, despite they do have a representative nature, the object of the representation could only be interpreted in some cases,16 all the other cases show irregular and nonfigurative applications. In almost every case, the painted objects could be defined as refuses of domestic practices: bones, discarded or fragmented stone artefacts, pot shreds. The sorts of contexts in which they have been found are related to what we have described in Chapter 5 as sedimentation: the slow and progressive accumulation of refuses of daily domestic practices under the floors and on the walls. Except for some uncertain case, painting applications were not observed on any complete and stillon-use object or inside any building deposit.

14 It is probable that they had suffered some sort of careless handling, or at least that was what Krapovickas suspected during his years at the Ethnographic Museum. 15 If the pottery of the Muniz Barreto collection from Tebenquiche Chico was actually washed with water, the absence of unfired painting in TC39W2 cannot be taken as an indicator of its non-existence when the find was made; instead, the presence of remains of paint in at least some of the pieces of TC40W1’s collection can indicate the opposite. It is really interesting, on the other hand, that it is precisely ware 1 of TC1 -which corresponds to what is known as Ordinary Caspinchango- one of the wares that shows more cases of unfired painting applications on the fragments that were deposited inside the domestic space (31, 25%, n=16).

16

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See Chapter 5, this volume.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 6.22: Andesite spade blade fragments with red ochre applications (they can be seen as light spots) from the excavation of TC1. Above and to the left, applications of pigment on the fracture in the distal edge of the haft element can be observed. The picture has been digitally processed.

The contexts of wall pictographies and painted pots express, both, strategies of social inclusion/exclusion of collective practices but in different scales: domestic the first ones, local or pertaining to the descent group the second ones. The difference between these two scales of social inclusion implied cultural concepts regarding different stages of life and matter: life and death for a start,17 because objects painted and sedimented inside the house seem to express an intermediate place between the other two kinds of painting. Sedimented objects changed states, they ceased to intervene in the type of practice for which they were originally made for, and they became part of another one: they were deposited in pits, included between the stones of the walls, used as building materials. In a very graphic sense, they are recycled objects, and painting shows that recycling. From this point of view, they become closer to the pots inside burial chambers. These, like the dead, changed states; they ceased to be the beakers, jars, and bowls that were used in the daily domestic practices, and became the pots that joined the dead.18 But since painting and sedimentation of objects were practices that were carried inside the domestic space and involved objects clearly related to daily familiar practices, it seems licit to believe that, the

same as wall paintings, they must have implied a domestic level of social inclusion.19 Both the ochre used in burial rituals and the ochre used on discarded domestic artefacts might be thought as integrating parts of rituals (Figure 6.23). That is, both ritual actions would have been fictitious and scripted, and, as such, they would have needed a frame and a demarcation in order to establish themselves as genre. In this same line, unfired painting and use of ochre might have helped in the meta-communicative demarcation of the ritual genre. Ochre was used in both rituals, maybe offering a bridge between different time and social scales. The daily time of domestic production would have been included in the sedimentation of refuses inside the house. The life cycles of death rituals would have been included in the deposition of pots inside underground chambers. Through the sedimentation of refuses, the household would have reproduced itself as architectural and social unit (Gramsch 1995). Restricted access to resources could be affirmed. Through the burial of the dead, the living households became able to be overcome through the supra-domestic production of the ancestors. Underground chambers differ from domestic architecture spatially 19

The commensurability of wall pictographies, objects with ochre applications, and pottery with unfired painting application is inscribed within an ‘anti-aesthetic’ position of the art object. As Gell states, if the art object is identifiable as such because it has an interpretation, then, many artefacts could be exhibited as art objects (Gell 1996).

17 See sections “The Dissimilar Tomb” and “The Construction of the Ancestors”, this same Chapter. 18 At least materially.

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THE OASIS BEYOND THE DOMESTIC cultural meanings in those contexts of action where ochre was used. In the particular context of period 1 of occupation of the oasis, ochre might have been a persuasive cultural media. Nature and culture -that second nature- would have been socially reproduced and modified through the use of ochre. In a way, Krapovickas was right when he said that unfired painting applications defined Tebenquiche culture. In the present argumentation, this comes along with ritual practices more than with cultural essences but, in the end, unfired painting could have been an objectified usual practice and, in this process, the definition of the descent group might have turned out objectified as well. Nonetheless, if things were this way, that is, if ochre really integrated a strategy of construction of local ethnicities, why did it remain to be a practice that was highly invisible to the outer world? Why was it left restricted to a realm as the burial ritual, through which the ancestors -real or fictitious- of the involved descent groups were built? To put it differently, if unfired painting could have turned into some kind of diacritic of the oasis’ identity, why did it remain within contexts that were mainly outside the communication between locals and non-locals? In Chapter 7 we will develop the characterization of the communication beyond the oasis.

Figure 6.23: Fragment of red ochre found in the excavation of TC1. It has been drilled in order to extract the ochre powder. Notice the trace of the drilling in the foreground and the erosion of the surface.

speaking. Besides, their invisibility strongly suggests the need of a social memory throughout time, related to those that have already taken part, for allowing the reproduction of the ritual. Thus, it could be said that, overcoming the domestic scale, the oasis might have been socially created through the ritual of the ancestors. Both rituals might have qualified two different social scales and two different time scales. But both instances of social performance would have used ochre as demarcation of the ritual genre. By sharing a same discoursive resource, a bridge between both apparently contradictory meanings became possible. The representations of ‘llamas/vicuñas-in-relationship’ as a socially restricted discourse can be understood as an ulterior elaboration of the social and time scales through, again, the same material resource. The ritual nature of the pictographies on TC1A2’s walls can be neither affirmed nor denied, but their spatial context and their representative content suggest that it was the society as subject of appropriation of nature the one that, again, was being built. Even though the particular meanings of ochre are unknown, it seems to have been, in the historic context of the oasis of Tebenquiche Chico, a material resource for ritual practice. The objects that were used in the appropriation of nature, the animals that were objects of social appropriation, and the individuals that were subjects of such appropriation might have changed their 181

Chapter 7

The World Beyond the Oasis “-What does that mean -‘domesticate-?” "You do not live here,” said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?” "I am looking for men,” said the little prince. "What does that mean -‘domesticate’?” "Men,” said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?” "No,” said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean -‘domesticate’?” "It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties”. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince). ethnoarchaeological researches suggest the existence of ritual sites in sleeping territories of animals (Nielsen and Mamaní 1997), they do not seem to bring about a real solution to this issue, because sleeping territories of caravans can coincide, in deserted areas where there is little water, with herding outposts or other occupations. Besides, the relationship of caravans as transport technology with the development of a specific ritual cannot be assumed as a necessary one. It brings, nonetheless, relevant elements for understanding the caravan as a strongly ritualized, high-risk social enterprise (Nielsen and Mamaní 1997).

In Chapter 5 we have presented evidence that backs-up our interpretation of the domestic scale of construction of the oasis. This evidence is mainly formed by data regarding internal and external spatial disposition of the domestic compounds, ritualization of the construction of the domestic space, sedimentation of elements involved in daily practices, and representations on the inner walls of the houses. Such data takes us towards the demarcation of the domestic as a space of social production and reproduction. The super-domestic scale, in which bigger groups are created, is, at its time, less visible than the domestic scale. Social kinship groups, through their participation in burial rituals in which the lines of relationship with the ancestors get defined, keep memory of the location of specific graves that, as we have already said, are not directly visible. In Chapter 6, we have introduced a possible reconstruction of the ways in which ritual markings might have defined both the ritual and its social context of performance and, thus, delineate as well the scales of social inclusion and exclusion of the involved groups. Unfired painting applications can be understood as a constitutive element of ritual marking and, through the comparison of the different contexts in which they appear, we have interpreted different levels of demarcation of social units. By comparing the material culture that is related to the building of domestic units and kinship groups, we have noticed a significant difference: the great visibility of the first scale in opposition to the tiny visibility of the second one. A third scale, the one that is defined by interregional interaction that is, the relationship of the oasis with the world beyond the desert-, might be, yet, even less visible. Partially, this sort of invisibility can be considered artefact of the almost null existence of studies on the circum-Puna region -whether these involve organic or inorganic materials. That is, since a map of relationships between different spots of origin and destination of goods within a regional scale is not available, an objective evaluation of the temporal and geographic variation and the volume of such interchange are not possible.

No isolated sites or structures that might relate to caravan rituals have been found on the area under study. Throughout many intensive surveys, nonetheless, some isolated structures -for example, tumulus-shaped gatherings of stones (apachetas), sometimes cylindrical (Figure 7.1)- were found. However, relating this kind of isolated structures to caravan transit so to interpret, afterwards, its existence in the past, does not seem to find any proper justification. One kind of artefact that has sometimes been related to caravan transit, the ‘tarabita’ or ‘harnessing fork’ (Krapovickas 1958-1959), does not appear among the objects that were recovered in the excavations and surface collections we made. Nevertheless, the absence of this wooden artefact, whether it represents a real absence or the effect of time, says nothing about the inexistence of caravans either. In any case, we would still have to demonstrate that such artefact is a necessary and irreplaceable element of the caravaneer’s equipment. Finds of these artefacts, dated Late Middle Period (930 A.C.), have been reported in association to funerary contexts in Coyo 3, Atacama basin (Costa and Llagostera 1994). Instead, the presence of depictions of caravans, if there had been any, might have been interpreted as an indicator of their existence. Differently from the paintings that were found on drips in other oases, the only rupestrian representations found in the area under study are the ones, as it has already been detailed, on the inner walls of room TC1A2. Even though some of the figures painted in yellow do seem to symbolize camelids, they do not present any additional attributes (such as fastenings,

The Invisible Caravan The apparent archaeological invisibility of caravans has always been an issue for regional archaeology engaged with this subject (Lecoq 1987; Nielsen and Mamaní 1997; Núñez and Dillehay 1994). Even though recent 182

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Figure 7.1: Tumulus-shaped stone structure on the northern edge of Tebenquiche Chico valley.

Figure 7.2: Decorated furnaces from pipes from TC40W1 (to the left) and TC38K5 (to the right). Notice the double line on the area between the ears and the chest in both cases. It is not possible to affirm if these are representations of llamas with fastenings or not.

ropes, loads, etc.) that would allow interpreting them as representations of cargo llamas.

pipes do not cease to be a little solid possibility among many other interpretation alternatives (Figure 7.2).

Among the group of modelled representations on ceramic artefacts, there are some that might signify cargo llamas or, at least, their head and neck fastenings. These are modelled representations on vertical furnaces of ceramic right-angled pipes that have continuous or discontinuous diagonal lines that come down from the ears to the chest. Nonetheless, they are not clear representations of cargo llamas, and the possible depictions on the furnaces of the

Even though the presence of road structures in the Andes has been mainly related to interregional movements of goods, it has also been associated to circulation of people, armies, and information. The road development in the Andes has been usually interpreted in relationship to the Inka expansion and consolidation processes (Hyslop 1984; Lynch 1993; Olivera 1991b; Raffino 1981; Stehberg 1995; Strube 1941). Two roads have been 183

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA

Figure 7.3: Tebenquiche Chico road. To the left, sight of the road towards the north, heading to Tebenquiche Chico oasis. To the right, sight of the road towards the south, heading to the coast of the Antofalla salt lake and alto de Calalaste.

identified next to the Punta Negra salt lake, and one of them seems to be pre-Inka.1 Lynch has gone through such narrow road, and has associated to it a ware that, though it looks very much like some Grey Incised Ciénaga bowls,2 he called “Black Polished San Pedro” (Lynch 1993). It might be the case, then, of roads that, being preInka, were earlier enough for relating to pottery that is

potentially typical of oases. In a later work, he comes back to the road to the west of Punta Negra salt lake: “Later works of the second author [Núñez] with Calogero Santoro, since they have discovered the pre-Inka road oriented towards the Pacific, have proved the first author’s [Lynch] assumptions. In fact, the record of preInka roads across the “despoblado” of Atacama has been verified by the finds of more than ten loci of stone-walled rooms between the salt lakes of Imilac and Punta Negra (Fuentes et al. 1991). These studies have proved that these paskanas are associated to roads and pottery shreds that correspond to the classic black and red polished types from beginnings of the era, including as well others in the sequence that end up in immediately pre-Inka red painted type. These roads contacted Atacama oases with the coast between Paposo-Taltal” (Lynch and Núñez 1994: 158-159).

1

On page 138, Lynch writes: “However, there is also another, essentially unstudied, narrower road that runs along the west side of the Salar de Punta Negra, southward from the Salar de Imilac. Considerable quantities of turquoise and shreds of San Pedro Negro Pulido ware are associated to this single-track road and its structures, as well as occasional Inca shreds”. Next, on page 140, he seems to mistake the location of the road when he says: “It may be that the road from Imilac, along the eastern side of the Salar de Punta Negra, represents an earlier route than the ‘new’ Inca road” (Lynch 1993:140). The mistake is repeated again in a later work with Núñez, where they state: “However, there is also another, essentially unstudied, narrower road that runs along the west side of the Salar de Punta Negra, southward from the Salar de Imilac. Considerable quantities of turquoise and shreds of San Pedro Negro Pulido ware are associated to this single-track road and its structures, as well as occasional Inca shreds. It may be that the road from Imilac, along the eastern side of the Salar de Punta Negra, represents an earlier route than the ‘new’ Inca road” (Lynch and Núñez 1994: 158). 2 See Figure 5.17 (Lynch 1993: 141), where the author shows a bowl with a flat base of rounded angles, straight walls and softly open mouth, smoothed grey, brown or cream (though certainly not black) colour, and incised decoration showing a vertical ‘boustrophedon’ motif delimited by straight lines and hatched by vertical diagonal lines that, covering the whole perimeter of the piece, is delimited by three parallel lines above, and one below. Apparently similar pottery was found in the excavations of TC1. The caption of the figure interestingly says: “San Pedro Negro Pulido bowl from road on west side of Salar de Punta Negra” (Lynch 1993: Figure 5.17).

In the campo of Tebenquiche Chico, near the side end between the fans of Tebenquiche Chico and Tebenquiche Grande, we found a road-shaped structure that consisted on a demarcation of a 2 m wide space made with stones disposed, approximately every 3 m, at both sides. This apparent road comes from the interior of the valley, approximately from the area with greater occupation density, and it goes southeast, towards the beach of the salt lake (Figure 7.3). We did not find any ceramic material associated to this structure, but a detailed survey including a complete following of its path and the collection of associated finds still needs to be done. Even though it is not possible to adventure the date of building 184

THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS and utilization of the road or the localities it might have connected, it is probable that, since it comes from Tebenquiche Chico valley, it dates from one of the periods of occupation (1 and/or 3) we have verified there. The association of a road with its utilization for transport on cargo llamas or, even less, with caravans, is not though it should not be discarded- a necessary association either. Anyway, the existence of the road of Punta Negra, since it would seem that it goes towards the Pacific coast between Paposo and Taltal (Lynch and Núñez 1994), that is, Tebenquiche Chico’s latitude, is quite significant.

collected in Campo del Pucará (Andalgalá, Catamarca) (Figure 7.4), the size difference of the foreleg and backleg first phalanxes.

From another approach, research moves towards the identification of bone indicators of caravans. If the male llamas that were included in the caravan had been castrated as it happens with other herbivorous, we could expect a widening of their long bones in relationship with their own length (Davis 1987). Specialists have begun to consider that maybe the extremely big phalanxes -that is, bigger than the biggest phalanxes of current non-cargo llamas- correspond to adult cargo llamas (Daniel Olivera, personal communication, September 1997). Besides, overload, since the weight of the load must be added to the own weight of the animal, might have been the cause of bone deformations in the phalanxes of the oldest animals (María Antonia Benavente Aninat, personal communication, September 1997). Out of the 3,809 bone specimens that could be determined at some taxonomic level in TC1’s zooarchaeological record, 2,714 -that is, 71%- correspond to Camelidae family. The camelid first phalanxes that were recovered in the excavations have been measured. Most of the phalanxes with fused proximal epiphyses are smaller than current phalanxes of Lama genre and equal to current phalanxes of Vicugna genre. Since cargo Lama glamma has not been included in the existing comparative patterns3 and it is assumed that castration and cargo use might have carried, by effect and/or selection, the creation of a somewhat bigger subpopulation, extremely big phalanxes might have belonged to L. glamma individuals used for cargo. If so, the little percentage would not indicate the relative relevance of cargo in front of other zootechnical functions, because, for a start, different uses could affect the expectations of deposition of bones differently. Among the phalanxes whose measures correspond to Lama, there are two groups that coincide with the standards published for L. glamma (Madero 1992). It could be the case, then, that we were dealing with a group of cargo llamas and a group of non-cargo llamas. Nonetheless, the bimodal distribution of the measurements of the widths of the proximal epiphyses of the first phalanxes of the llamas of TC1 matches perfectly, according to their comparison with published samples (Madero 1992) and samples

Figure 7.4: Length-width relationship (of the proximal epiphysis) of camelid first phalanxes samples recovered in the excavation of TC1 (rhombuses), and current samples (circles). Notice that the dispersion of current phalanxes accounts for the dispersion of the bigger archaeological phalanxes.

As a full pattern of sizes of phalanxes of different zootechnical functions and different camelid taxa has not been established yet, these conjectures are still little reliable -they are based on the inexistence of a current pattern that matches the very big specimens more than on the actual existence of a pattern of cargo llamas of very big phalanxes (Cartajena 1994). Anyhow, it is not necessary to call for the existence of specific zootechnical functions -such as cargo- to acknowledge the presence of bigger first phalanxes in TC1’s zooarchaeological data because, as we have said, the sizes of such phalanxes

3

The carcasses for the current comparative patterns have been collected in localities of Condorhuasi (Andalgalá, Catamarca) and Antofagasta de la Sierra (Antofagasta de la Sierra, Catamarca) in 1988, places where, by that time, there was no record or memory of any kind of practice of transport on cargo llamas.

185

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA -that is, that interchange in which goods are transported on human and not llama backs- is the amplification of the volume and distance of the interchange. That is to say, the caravan multiplies the volume, weight, and extension of the trading flow per individual involved in the mobility. The costs of the interchange would be very much reduced with the introduction of caravan technology. This would imply that, keeping the trading flow constant, caravan technology would reduce the number of people involved in the transportation of goods. The caravan would be a technology that allows maintaining significant volumes of trading flow yet without implying the mobilization of each and every one of the individuals of the social groups involved in the interchange. At the same time, and since the volume of the trading flow under caravan technology depends on the number of cargo llamas and not, as it happens under human technology, on the number of cargo persons, caravan technology would allow a greater adaptability to an inconstant and variable demand. Thus, in pre-modern and mainly rural economic contexts, which are quite likely characterized by irregularity and variable volumes of flows better than by periodicity and constant and foreseeable flows, the costs of reproduction of the groups involved in long-distance transportation of interchange goods might have well been a comparative advantage for llama caravan technology. Hence, and following the reasoning, it could be said that, given an absence of cargo beasts, economic spaces remain underdeveloped. This last fact is exactly what results from the direct application of Wallerstein’s theoretical model of world-systems (1991a) to pre-capitalist cases.

match perfectly with phalanxes of current individuals that were not used for cargo while alive. The difficulty of identifying caravan activity through its material remains has been and still is a really serious problem for any archaeologist interested in the region. The identification of trans-Puna movements of goods has also been considered an alternative way of identifying caravans. The trust on the fertility of this alternative has been shared by many specialists on the subject, to the extent of becoming the basis of academic interchange programmes recently carried in San Pedro de Atacama (1996) and Buenos Aires (1997) (Tarragó and Núñez 1996). Despite all the difficulties that a research proposal that needs a large and relatively complete data base of non-local material goods at a circum-Puna scale presents, it seems to offer, on the other hand, clear evidences of movements of goods between certain areas during particular periods. This way, certain patterns of interchange that configure a historic ordering of forces within the south-central Andes economic space appear. These patterns of presence and absence of movements have been described in really influential previous proposals of historic interpretation of the regional economic space (Dillehay and Núñez 1984; Núñez and Dillehay 1979, 1994; Tarragó 1984). Since we are dealing with evidences of relatively isolated movements of goods and, in any case, not plausible of being quantified yet, they can just be considered evidences of interaction broadly speaking. The facts that indicate early movements of material goods across the circum-Puna and even south-central Andean space do not necessarily lead to an interpretation of the particular way -which would be the one based on the use of cargo llamas caravan technology- in which such interchange was carried.

The relationship between transport technology, volume of the interchange, and economic development is precisely the subject that has been more heatedly argued by historians and archaeologists dealing with pre-capitalist historical contexts. In these contexts, the articulation of economic spaces around quantitatively significant flows of interchange would not have been produced until quite late (Champion 1995 [1989]). On the contrary, cases such as the ones from Late Neolithic and European Bronze Age (Champion et al. 1984) and Formative Mesoamerica (McGuire 1995 [1989]) show processes of regional articulation that, differently from the classic Wallersteinian case, were not characterized by regular interchanges of large volumes of goods. The first regional articulations were not characterized by bulk staple goods under demographically regulated demands. Instead, these early interactions were developed through long-distance, little volume interchanges of high added value goods and non- demographically regulated demand, that is, certainly not bulk staple goods.

Long-distance movement of goods has been documented in the area for very ancient times, and it has been interpreted as an indicator of some kind of interchange already in Archaic times (for example, in site Inca Cueva 7, Aschero and Yacobaccio 1994; and site Quebrada Seca 3, Carlos Aschero, personal communication, July 1998). But accepting the existence of transportation of certain goods must necessarily lead to accept, as well, the existence of llama caravans as agents of such regional interchange. Not counting on any clear indicators of caravans, the interpretation of caravan is mainly based, thus, on the existing consensus of its existence among regional archaeology specialists. It is absolutely necessary, hence, to analyze the assumptions upon which such consensus lies, and the implications that the acceptance of such caravan model entails. Technology of Interaction: From the Caravan to the Oasis

Within the previous discussion, the fact that the southAndean world-system of the first millennium A.D. was characterized by the interchange of qualitatively significant goods becomes quite relevant. Metallic artefacts, shells from the Pacific Ocean, vegetal psychoactive drugs, and fine textiles are among the

As Núñez and Dillehay put it in their influential work on the subject (1978), the caravan is, mainly though not only, an interaction technology. One of the main differences between caravan and non-caravan interchange 186

THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS objects that were highly appreciated due to their ritual association and the many times hidden nature of the knowledge needed for their procurement, production, and/or use. The characteristic that all these goods shared is, precisely, that they included an added value that was far beyond the mere addition of energetic costs of procurement and production, because the value of such goods was defined by specific pieces of fundamentally sacred and hidden knowledge. Hence, the circulation of these goods would reveal, in fact, a circulation of a whole series of specialized and hidden services that were highly appreciated precisely for being hidden and specialized. Other services probably related to this circulation would be healing, magic, herb-use, and, of course, intermediation.

continuation of ‘traditional’ patterns (Sanhueza 1992). That is, she brings about more argumentative backing because she considers the nineteenth-century caravan as a continuation of what it is assumed happened -though we do not count on any specific factual evidence of this being so- until immediately before as part of a local traditional pattern. Archaeological evidences of long-distance interactions across the circum-Puna space provide a second backing. Nonetheless, these evidences do not imply at all that goods were necessarily transported by llama caravans. Summing up, the evidences of inter-regional interaction that were brought about by different authors -and the ones we could add here from the excavations of TC1- can be considered evidences of interaction but, by no means, evidences of the specific way of interaction llama caravans constitute. Besides, the strength of the image of colonial and post-colonial caravan and muleteering in the creation of the inter-subjective consensus regarding the existence of pre-Hispanic caravans warns us about the dangerous risk of assuming for pre-Hispanic times an analogue context to the economic and political context in which the colonial economic system was articulated. It is this context the one that, to a great extent, determined the selection of transport technologies that would reduce the costs of trading flows of staple goods (Assadourian 1983).

Intermediation or transport was a good itself. Its value would have been more appreciated the longer, more deserted, and lacking of resources the road that had to be travelled was. If we add to this the accurate characterization of the circum-Puna geography as a ring of valleys with a comparatively higher concentration of resources and population around a wide and dry space of comparatively much lesser productivity and occupation density (Tarragó 1984), it becomes clear that the role that transport technology and the creation of Puna oases must have played has not necessarily been amplifying the volume of the interchange. In this sense, it is wise to restate the role of the caravan within the argumentation on pre-Hispanic regional articulation. That caravan hypotheses have been favoured by inter-subjective consensus does not mean that its existence in early times is proved or backed-up by archaeological data, and even less that such consensus allows us characterizing the socioeconomic context of such early interchanges. The most influential work on caravan technology is based on two different backings (Núñez and Dillehay 1979). One of them is the image provided by travellers4 and according to which, within a context of natural marginality,5 the only viable economic activity the Puna de Atacama would have been able to undertake is muleteering and mule caravan from the Argentinean northwest to the mines and saltpetre offices of the Chilean desert. In Chapter 2, we have analyzed the set of elements that created the Puna de Atacama as a geographical and historical image, and the influences such image had in the construction of the archaeology of the region. The caravan can be considered another element inside such imaginary construction.6 More recently, Sanhueza has offered an important picture of the functioning of muleteering and caravan during the early colonial period. Even though she accepts the more consensual than factual existence of the pre-Hispanic caravan, she interprets colonial muleteering as a

Instead, the main feature of south-central Andean prehistory shows a kind of interchange that is closer to primitive trade better than to interchanges of commodities. Primitive trade has been described by anthropology as instances of construction of social networks (Edmonds 1995; Gosden 1994). In the circumPuna region, traded objects seem to have been characterized by their dependency on specific pieces of knowledge, personal skills, and sacred qualities better than on mere human subsistence. In this sense, these are objects that are strongly related to the people and social groups that are involved in the circulation, because, for a start, these last ones have great potential for transporting ‘ideas and associations’. “Because of their associations with particular practices and perhaps with categories of person, these objects may have provided media for exchanges which helped to renew the bonds that existed between different communities. For example, the movement of pottery may have had relatively little to do with its immediate role as practical container” (Edmonds 1995: 56). But, differently from what a strict application of Wallerstein’s model shows, its reinterpretation according to the features of primitive trade does not imply an underdeveloped world-system or an obstacle for economic and political accumulation possibilities regarding the insertion in interaction networks.7 Since interchange is one of the main medias for creating inter-

4

Among them, it is worth mentioning Bowman (1924). See Chapter 2, this volume. 6 Here, ‘imaginary’ means transposition of images of the reality to historically related though not identical realities; it does not refer to factual backing independently created in the archaeological reality. 5

7

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Always speaking in historically relative terms.

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA an advantage for Puna journeys in front of extra-Puna ones. The awareness of passages and water streams, of vital importance for trans-Puna transit, as well as the understanding of the technical knowledge related to characteristic atmospheric risks of the Puna geography such as electric storms and white winds, might have also been a comparative advantage for Puna travellers.

personal and inter-group debts and obligations, and since it allows a very restricted access to highly controllable and symbolically charged exotic goods and pieces of knowledge, interchange of high added-value goods and knowledge might have allowed individuals and/or groups creating contexts of economic and political accumulation (Gosden 1989). A clear example of this would be the role of exotic goods in the hierarchical competition of European final Neolithic and Bronze Age (Champion et al. 1984).

Hence, resuming the discussion about the features of the circum-Puna interchange in relationship with the features of the regional economic space and its inner differences, and putting transport technology between brackets for now, the creation of Puna oases can be seen as a process closely related to a wider context of integration of the regional space. The articulation of the circum-Puna space inside the south-central Andean area could have implied the development of oases that, given the characteristics of the early interchange and even more than caravan technology itself, can, therefore, be seen as a fundamental artefact in the technological development of circum-Puna interaction. Differently from the stated by Núñez and Dillehay (1979), the caravan was not a necessary element in early interchange contexts, and it was neither necessary that Puna oases8 were developed as resupply spots for caravans. To assume that Puna oases were only intermittently inhabited by peoples coming from spots of greater population and resources concentration located in the periphery of the circum-Puna,9 is only acceptable if we also assume that these were not apt sites for the development of productive economies of selfconsumption and/or interchange. This implies that Puna oases were not permanent settlements of productive economies that also developed long-distance interchange enterprises.10 The agricultural evidences of Tebenquiche Chico11 contradict this assumption, for what the panorama could have well been another.

Up to here, it is convenient to put caravan between brackets; that is to say, affirm nor its existence neither its absence during the first millennium of the era, and discuss interaction instead. South Andean inter-regional interaction during the first millennium A.D., whether it was done by llama caravans or not, seems to have been characterized by the strong social and symbolic content of the exchanged goods and knowledge and by the large scale of regional articulation it allowed. The articulation of the circum-Puna space with the rest of the southcentral Andes seems to have formed part of the same process of creation of the world-system of the first millennium A.D. The Circum-Puna Space Tarragó has underlined the particular geographical organization of the circum-Puna space, to which she refers quite properly because it is the area, difficult to pass through, that is around the Puna space. The Puna is a space comparatively less productive than the nearby valleys, but the circum-Puna seems to have been historically defined as a region as a whole (Tarragó 1984). Thus, the particular geography of the circumPuna, according to which the most productive and inhabited areas are spatially located in the margins of the least productive and inhabited ones, shows the Puna space as one through which all those relationships that made this region an integrated region must have flowed. It is the socially oriented nature of the trading flow what structured, as part of the same process through which the circum-Puna was spatially integrated, economic interaction. Whatever transport technology was used, it does not seem that the volume of the flow would have pressured towards the reduction of transport costs. This would not have happened until the times when the Inka polity mobilized people and resources, or probably a little earlier, when Late chiefdoms developed other economic and politic strategies oriented to the territorial control of enclaves. But in pre-Late contexts, which are characterized by inconstant, variable, distant flows of socially oriented goods and services, Puna oases would have been advantageous settlements of groups that, among their activities, organized and set off long-distance journeys. These journeys would have commercially and socially related spots on the lower valleys and oases that were apart from each other because of the Puna. The access to their own oases as spots of organization and redistribution of commercial flows might have well been

Circum-Puna interaction formed part of the same historic process through which oases were created. The intellectual context in which the idea of the caravan as a necessary integrating part of circum-Puna interaction was promoted has been strongly influenced by a general analogy with the mule caravan and colonial and postcolonial muleteering, and by ethnohistoric data regarding its Late and Inca llama caravan antecedents. In the postcolonial context, muleteering has been one of the most blossoming activities in the region, and its description has coincided with the development of the literary image of the Puna region as ‘Puna de Atacama’ as marginal space. Within this framework, every piece of evidence is automatically interpretable as evidence of caravan activity, for what the caravan and its socioeconomic context become self-confirmed facts. In this strongly influenced by historic analogies context, there 8

“High-Puna oases” in their texts. As Núñez and Dillehay propose for San Pedro de Atacama. 10 We have extensively developed the issue of the Puna de Atacama as marginal space and we have analyzed the relationships between this assumption and circuit mobility theory in Chapter 3, this same volume. 11 Already described in Chapter 5, this same volume. 9

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THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS has been little room left for understanding the past as radically different from the present.12 The economy of scale that the caravan as transport technology implies is only relevant in economic contexts of interchanges of staple goods that historically developed only since the reordering of the regional economic space the redistributive Inca economy introduced, and maybe some time earlier with the development of the Late chiefdoms oriented towards the territorial control of far away resources. Early interchange, instead, can be understood as radically different, because it consists on the circulation of objects of high added-value, with strong symbolic and social associations, through social events of interaction previously regulated by individuals and their adscription groups. The social, symbolic, and economic traits of this early interaction are therefore indistinguishable, and economic transactions could have allowed the establishment of specific social relationships as well as vice versa; because, in the end, we are talking about objects and pieces of knowledge that are related to the identities of the intervenient individuals and groups. Seen at a large geographic scale, circulation of objects might have implied, besides the crossing of more than one social frontier, the exchange of value regimes. That is to say, objects that were produced in a particular place specifically for articulation might have entered a different value regime for being considered exotic or weird in other spot of the space.

function as articulator of the economic space. That is, throughout the long process of regional integration of the south-central Andes, the inhabitants of Puna oases would have been technologically better equipped for intervening directly on the circulation of goods than circun-Puna inhabitants, because the first ones, thanks to the dominance of the oasis landscape, would have controlled that intermediate geography that had to be unavoidably crossed in the articulation of the regional space. One of the interaction resources produced in the oases could have been, precisely, the transport of goods and persons through the supply of adequate technological resources for crossing the Puna, and necessary social resources for establishing interchange relationships between such goods and services. Even though there might have been cargo llamas among such technological resources, nor cargo llamas neither their gathering in caravans were necessary technologies for the development of interchange in a historic economic context such as the one that is being described. This does not imply affirming that there were not any cargo llamas or llama caravans either. As it has been already explained, it is not possible to affirm or deny their existence during the first millennium A.D., but, if they had existed, they surely would not have been an essential condition for the development of regional interaction. That is to say, the kind of interregional interaction of the circum-Puna space during the first millennium of the era does not seem to have promoted the technological development cargo llamas and/or caravans would have implied. But the fact that, from an economicist perspective, interchange contexts of little volume per unity of value do not coincide with the development of a particular transport technology does not mean that, from another point of view whose potentiality has not been understood yet, cargo llamas could not have had other senses. Only if we reduce caravans to transport technology it is possible to affirm what we have developed throughout these last pages. Hence, we cannot state the existence or inexistence of caravans during the first millennium of the era yet. It is neither possible to pretend an understanding of such phenomenon -if it had actually existed- in social and cultural terms or, even less, to assume its role within the historical regional process. It is a conjectural object of unknown contextual implications that, nevertheless and in any case, would not have been solved at a purely economic level.14

Oases in Articulation What did oases have to offer in this articulation? Oases precisely offered, quite likely in comparatively advantageous conditions, articulation between trans-Puna spaces. In interaction contexts not necessarily characterized by political harmony across the entire economic space,13 the role of economic intermediation of apparently marginal agents might have guaranteed the continuity of the economic integration even beyond the more or less inflexible nature of the interethnic frontiers. The centres of demand of goods in the Titicaca basin, in the oases of the Atacama desert, in the valleys or alluvial basins of the west of Catamarca and La Rioja, or in the sierras and valleys of the Ambato mountains, did not necessarily have to maintain direct political and social relationships between them -though this is a very much uncertain fact since the degree of political integration of each one of these places is far away from being equivalent. Intermediary agents might have well belonged to none of these demand centres. They could have furthermore been apparently marginal to all of them and, besides, they might have counted on a comparatively better access to mobility resources (water streams, passages, oases). Their importance should then be understood as a good whose high value depends on its

In a context in which intermediation services could have well been one of the main interaction goods, two ways of relating to circum-Puna spaces might have been advantageous. In first place, searching to maximize longdistance personal and group relationships, Puna inhabitants would have maintained direct interaction relationships with several spots of the circum-Puna ring. 14

It is expectable that future research on the subject will bring about more elements for the development of the caravan hypothesis on firmer evidences, not only regarding its existence or inexistence, but also regarding the relationship between interchange technologies and social and cultural contexts of interchange.

12

Meaning by present, ethnographic present; in this case, nineteenth and twentieth centuries travellers’ accounts. 13 Different, hence, from what Dillehay and Núñez’s (1984) and Núñez and Dillehay’s (1979, 1994) circuit mobility theory states.

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Figure 7.5: Probable closer areas of provenance of allochthonous elements of period 1 found in Tebenquiche Chico. Notice the configuration of a circum-Puna space of interaction through suni oases.

from which the group is interpreted (1992).15 The pattern of ‘trans-Puna’ finds inside TC1’s domestic space shows a scenario that is exactly as the one we should be expecting within a context such as the one we have just described. ‘Trans-Puna’ objects are just a few in front of the whole group of recollected objects, but they integrated domestic practices of building of the house and filling up of pits in its interior anyway. That is to say, there is a large variety of objects from many far-away places and these objects were included in inner domestic spaces and burial contexts but, nonetheless, none of their categories is quantitatively or qualitatively predominant enough for demarcating such spaces and their practices in one way or another (Figure 7.5). The group of allochthonous objects found in TC1 allows inferring the articulation of the oasis inside the south-central Andean space. At the same time, the qualitative-quantitative

In second place, as a strategy for minimizing the risks of being included by others in specific ethnic groups, they would have simultaneously tried to avoid any permanent adscription to particular circum-Puna social or ethnic groups. The importance of intermediation as a good inside the articulated regional space could have depended on the ability of Puna inhabitants for maximizing longdistance social bonds and, at the same time, remain ‘nonaligned’ with any geographically and/or ethnically acknowledged group or, even more, avoid any ethnic distinction at all. If oases have been ‘non-aligned’ articulators of the circum-Puna space, we should expect a wide variety of objects indicating different trans-Puna spaces, but in little quantities and without any of the potential ethnic diatrics prevailing in them. This kind of representation of the ethnic adscription could be referred to what Herzfeld had defined as disemics: a construction of the group that differs depending on the perspective

15 We have rebuilt some of the features of disemics theory in relationship to the construction of Puna ethnic identities in Chapter 3, this same volume.

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THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS pattern of these finds can be interpreted as a sample of the objects that were in circulation as a result of the role of articulators of the circum-Puna space the inhabitants of Tebenquiche Chico would have played. They are highly appreciated objects themselves, but, above and beyond, they are objects related to sets of knowledge, contents, and prescriptions. But perhaps the role of the inhabitants of Tebenquiche Chico was not only being intermediaries of a circulation of objects that were actually produced and consumed somewhere else far-away from the oasis. A heterogeneous though tightly related group of evidences shows that it is quite likely that Tebenquiche Chico’s inhabitants did not only produce services but also interchange goods. Vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) wool, unique for knitting high-quality textiles, was a resource that was exploited in Tebenquiche Chico and, most probably, in all the other Puna oases.16 Vicuña wool might have been a highly appreciated good across the regional space, at least since the first millennium B.C. (Dransart 1991a, 1991b). Nonetheless, it is difficult -if not impossible- to establish past distributions of vicuña populations, and the current distribution can absolutely not be taken as analogue because several historic processes -among them, different ways of hunting, oscillations of the demand, protection and controlled reproduction politics, etc.- have influenced in it. Even though it is not possible to affirm that puna grasses were the only apt space for vicuña reproduction, it seems reasonable to accept that puna areas, between 3,900 and 4,700 m asl, presented, at least, optimal conditions for this. It might be licit to believe, thus, that access to puna grasses allowed, at a same time, comparatively larger availability for vicuñas, and better quality for their wool. Regrettably, vicuña textiles -as any other textile objectare quite poorly conserved in most archaeological sites, for what establishing chorographic patterns of distribution becomes a really difficult task. Even though it is not simple to analyze the possible circulation of vicuña wool textiles, we can analyze, instead, the phenomenon from the opposite edge, that is, from the assumed spots of production. The preservation of wool is not as favourable as we could wish for there either. It is convenient, hence, to introduce ourselves into the phenomenon of production of vicuña wool from the bone and stone patterns associated to such productive practices and their social scenarios.

Figure 7.6: Percentage representation of vertebrate and invertebrate remains in TC1’s zooarchaeological group (n=3,809)

Table 7.1: Taxonomic determinations of vertebrates found in TC1.

different mammal taxa that were able to be determined at least at a family level (Figure 7.7; Mares et al. 1997). Out of the 2,479 determined bone specimens, 98.6 per cent correspond to Artiodactyla, and the remaining 1.4 per cent, to some group of Rodentia (Figure 7.8). As a previous step to zooarchaeological analysis, we will next develop the methodological-technical approach we used for the camelid taxonomic determination and anatomic quantifying through osteoscopic and osteometric techniques. There are different factors that determine the effectiveness of specific discriminations. Taphonomic and taxonomic factors are the most important. Among taphonomic factors we can include: variations in the deposition of different bones of the skeleton, their density and size differences that can cause different degrees of conservation, and action by rodents

The Domestic Bone With the purpose of interpreting bone patterns of domestic contexts, we subsequently introduce the analysis of TC1’s zooarchaeological data. Out of a total of 3,809 bone specimens, 99.8 per cent correspond to vertebrates (Figure 7.6 and Table 7.1). Out of the 3,801 vertebrate bone specimens, 65.2 per cent correspond to 16 A remarkable exposition about the social and symbolic relevance of textiles can be read in Gallardo (1993).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA proposed by Benavente et al. (1993), we do not have four taxonomic groups but, to begin with, a certain quantity of taxonomic groups that coincide with the species or gather more than one species in them. In TC1’s bone data, the only taxonomic groups that could be determined at a specific level and clearly discriminated from other species are Vicugna vicugna and Lama glamma. Hence, and with the purpose of reducing the dispersion of our taxonomic determinations -which would pervade every possibility of interpretation of zooarchaeological evidences- and even risking taking a paleontologically objectionable decision, we have simplified the taxonomic camelid variability in three groups: llamas, vicuñas, and llamas/vicuñas18 (Figure 7.9). In this sense, the taxonomically interpretable groups are llamas and vicuñas,19 and llamas/vicuñas represents a group that gathers the llamas and vicuñas that cannot be determined until other keys or techniques allow their discrimination. The group llamas/vicuñas is not being proposed as a new taxonomic group; it is a group of osteological evidences that might belong to llamas or to vicuñas. We do not use family taxonomic denomination Camelidae precisely because we want to emphasise the fact that this is not a taxonomic group but a technically undifferentiated group of bones of llamas and vicuñas.20

Figure 7.7: Percentage proportion of TC1’s determined and non-determined bone specimens (n=3,801).

Besides, we did not determine any cervid specimen in TC1’s bone data, for what every bone of Artiodactyla that to begin with did not have any family discriminating key (for example, ribs) was, nonetheless, interpreted as camelid and subsequently incorporated to llamas/vicuñas category. Again, this decision has intended the reduction of the taxonomic dispersion due to technical effects, and it is based on the absence of cervids or tayasuids (the other Artiodactyla families recorded in Catamarca; Mares et al. 1997) bones in our bone assemblage. Next, we

Figure 7.8: Percentage proportion of TC1’s bird and mammal bone specimens (n=3,801).

18

The equivalencies were made according to the following simple rules: Bone specimen determined Vicugna vicugna, equivalent to vicuña. Bone specimen determined Vicugna vicugna or Lama guanicoe, equivalent to vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Vicugna vicugna or Lama pacos, equivalent to vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Vicugna vicugna or Lama guanicoe or Lama pacos, equivalent to vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma, equivalent to llama. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Lama guanicoe, equivalent to llama. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Lama pacos, equivalent to llama. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Lama guanicoe or Lama pacos, equivalent to llama. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Vicugna vicugna, equivalent to llama/vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Vicugna vicugna or Lama pacos, equivalent to llama/vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Vicugna vicugna or Lama guanicoe, equivalent to llama/vicuña. • Bone specimen determined Lama glamma or Vicugna vicugna or Lama guanicoe or Lama pacos, equivalent to llama/vicuña. 19 These were the only species clearly discriminated through the application of discriminating keys. 20 In this sense, our proposal keeps certain similarity to the use that Old World zooarchaeologists gave to denomination ovicaprid in order not to use bovid family denominations.

17

• •

and/or carnivores on different bones or parts of them (Lyman 1994; Olivera et al. 1991-1992). This way, for example, since some taxonomic keys have more probabilities of remaining visible than others, they heterogeneously affect specific discriminations. Besides, not all taxonomic keys discriminate between the four groups with the same effectiveness or to an equal degree, and there are many keys that discriminate between two or three groups but not four, gathering, thus, two or three different species in one or more groups. For example, the range of curvature of the parietal discriminates Vicugna genre, which has convex parietals in sagital and transversal norms, and Lama genre, which has convex parietals in transversal norms, but it does not discriminate species within this last genre. Instead, the femoral trochlea does not have anterior delimitation in Lama guanicoe, L. pacos, and Vicugna vicugna, but it does present a quite evident anterior limit in L. glamma. Thus, as a result of the application of the taxonomic keys 17 See graphic with percentages of bones with marks of rodent and carnivore below.

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Figure 7.9: Percentage proportions of each bone against the total of bones of the taxa (ncamelid=2,430; nvicuña=164; nllama=73).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA and/or medial epicondyle fussed. The distal epiphysis is fussed to the diaphysis between ten and twelve months old in age Offspring 5, and the epicondyle, though it is semi-fussed since age Offspring 5, between nineteen and twenty-four months old in age Juvenile 2 (Herrera 1988). These 11 bones are smaller than those of a one-year-old llama, for what at least 7 of them -those whose distal diaphyses and epiphyses are fussed- can be confidently assigned to vicuñas. The other 4 specimens, since they remain in an insufficiently determined age/size relationship, can only be assigned to llama/vicuña. Besides, a specimen with non-fussed epicondyle, that is, probably younger than nine months old (Offspring 4 or younger) but certainly younger than eighteen months old (Juvenile 1 or younger), though quite big (similar size to an adult llama), has most likely belonged to a llama and quite hardly to a vicuña. Thus, through the application of osteoscopic keys and age/size relationships, we were able to assigned 13 specimens to vicuña, 9 to llama, and 54 to llama/vicuña.

detail the results of the osteoscopy and osteometry of each bone. Skull: The skull includes nine different taxonomic keys. We have only applied two of them because specimens were poorly conserved and highly fragmented. Out of a total of 114 skull specimens, the supraorbital groove of the frontal bone allowed discriminating 4 llama specimens, the range of curvature of the parietal allowed determining 1 vicuña specimen, and the beginning of the palatal arch allowed determining 1 vicuña specimen. The remaining 108 specimens were assigned to llama/vicuña. Inferior maxilla: We have identified 47 specimens of Camelidae mandible. Among them, through the observation of the location of the mentonian foramen, the characteristics of the spine of the mandibular foramen, and the morphology of the teeth, we were able to discriminate 5 llamas and 5 vicuñas. The remaining 37 specimens were assigned to llama/vicuña.

Radius-ulna: Through the observation of the taxonomic keys on the lateral tuberosity of the radius and the olecranon and the olecranian tuberosity, we could determined 11 llama and 12 vicuña specimens. As it happened with the humerus, the proximal radius-ulna groups all the taxonomic keys, so we have applied age/size relationship too. A non-fussed radius-ulna distal epiphysis of similar size to that of an adult llama was precisely assigned to llama because it is really unlikely that a young vicuña can reach that size. 12 little specimens llama Offspring size have their distal epiphyses fussed to the diaphyses. Since this only happens on Adult llamas and vicuñas, these specimens quite surely belong to vicuñas. Thus, from the 121 radiusulna specimens, 85 were assigned to llama/vicuña, 12 to llama, and 24 to vicuña.

Teeth: Out of 25 identified incisors, 7 were discriminated as llama and 11 as vicuña. The other 7 specimens were assigned to llama/vicuña. Out of 6 identified canines, 5 were determined as vicuña and 1 as llama/vicuña. We have identified 4 premolars and 48 molars as llama/vicuña. Vertebrae: In the cervical zone of the vertebral column, we have identified 4 atlases and 11 axes of llama/vicuña. We have identified 76 of the remaining cervical vertebrae; one of them shows vertebral body and spinal process characteristics that determine it as vicuña. 14 toraxic vertebrae assigned to llama/vicuña were identified. Out of 41 lumbar vertebrae, 8 were assigned to llama and 3 to vicuña thanks to the morphology of their inferior articular and transverse processes. 6 sacral vertebrae and 29 caudals were identified as llama/vicuña.

Carpal bones: The carpal bones that were determined as llama/vicuña are: 27 pisciform bones, 37 scaphoid bones, 36 cuneiform bones, 28 lunate bones, 24 magnum bones, 10 trapezoid bones, and 30 hamate bones. These bones do not contain any taxonomic key or lines of fusion.

Ribs: 220 rib specimens and 22 costal cartilage specimens were determined and assigned to llama/vicuña. Sternum: We could assign 1 sternebra to llama/vicuña.

Metacarpal: We have determined 27 metacarpal specimens corresponding to proximal sectors. Since the lines of fusion between diaphysis and epicondyle are placed on the distal end and, thus, they are generally indistinguishable from metatarsals and were afterwards incorporated to category metapodium, and since, besides, no key has been proposed for these bones, they were assigned to category llama/vicuña.

Scapulae: We have determined 33 scapula specimens. Thanks to the analysis of the morphology of the coracoid process and the scapular tuberosity and fossa, 25 of them were assigned to llama/vicuña, 5 to llama, and 3 to vicuña. Humerus: 75 humerus specimens were determined. Through the observation of the circular rugosity of the proximal tuberosity, the triangular area, the humeral ridge, and the deltoid tuberosity, 62 of them were assigned to llama/vicuña, 8 to llama, and 6 to vicuña. Since the osteoscopic keys are located in the first half of the humerus, the bone fragments from distal halves can just be assigned to llama/vicuña. Out of these last distal humerus specimens, 7 are small and have their distal epiphyses fussed to the diaphyses, and 4 have their lateral

Phalanxes: Out of the 281 identified first phalanxes, 24 were assigned to vicuña and 4 to llama through measurements of the width of their proximal epiphyses. Other 2 more specimens were assigned to llama because, even though they could not be measured and they were unfussed, they presented adult llama sizes. On the other hand, other 9 specimens were assigned to vicuña because, 194

THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS non-fussed distal epiphyses and such fusion only occurs in Adult ages, was assigned to llama.

being smaller than llama Offspring size, they presented fussed epiphyses anyway, and this only happens after age Juvenile 2. Hence, and despite there are no taxonomic keys on first phalanxes, 40 specimens were assigned to vicuña, 6 to llama, and 242 to llama/vicuña. We have identified 180 second phalanxes. 33 of them were assigned to vicuña because, even though they are smaller than llama Offspring size, they present fussed epiphyses and this only happens after age Juvenile 2. The remaining 147 specimens were assigned to category llama/vicuña. We have identified 148 third phalanxes. All of them were assigned to category llama/vicuña.

Metapodium: 110 specimens were determined as metapodium (unclassified metacarpal or metatarsal). 8 of them presented fussed distal epiphyses and were llama Offspring size, for what, since such fusion only happens in Adult llamas and vicuñas, they were assigned to vicuña. The remaining 102 specimens were assigned to category llama/vicuña. Sesamoid bones: We have assigned 151 sesamoid bones specimens to llama/vicuña.

Coxal: Out of the 27 identified coxal specimens, 4 were determined as llama because of the morphology of the topography of the bigger sciatic notch, the angle of the ventral side and that of the pubic arch, and the morphology of the ventral side of the ischium. The remaining 23 specimens were assigned to category llama/vicuña.

The panorama obtained out of the previous taxonomic analysis is different from the one the gathering of the specimens under family denominations would have offered. Zoological determinations allow affirming that the bone group is formed by llamas and vicuñas, plus ‘rare’ taxa such as rodents, felines, foxes, birds, and molluscs (bivalve Chlamys sp., a Pacific Ocean oyster, and two Gastropoda, one Olividae -salty water mollusc-, and one Succinidae -sweet water mollusc, presumably from Tebenquiche Chico river itself) (Figure 7.8 and Table 7.1). Other taxonomic groups, including artiodactyls, camelids, and their different combinations, are effect of technical limitations. The determination of llamas and vicuñas, no matter how fragmentary it might be, allows interpreting different attitudes towards both animals. With the purpose of comparing these different attitudes towards llamas and vicuñas, we have prepared a graph with percentage distributions of the bones of these two taxa and the bones of camelids (all the bones of llama, vicuña, and llama/vicuña) (Figure 7.9). Besides, a second graph compares these same distributions to percentage proportions of each bone according to the anatomic expectations for full skeletons (Figure 7.10). There are certain parts of the skeleton for which deposition inside the house took different attitudes. Starting by the head, even though it is evident that proportions of camelid skulls exceed by far anatomic expectations, this can be consequence, at least partially, of the highly fragmented nature of skulls. To that extent, the comparison between skulls and mandibles can be illustrative. The littler fragmentation of mandibles can be the cause of the greater proximity of these last ones better than skulls- between the curve of camelids and respect the anatomic expectations. At the same time, the comparison of skull and mandible between the curve of camelids and the curves of llama and vicuña is also oriented this way: the greater fragmentation of skulls might have produced, differently from mandibles, bigger difficulties for their specific determination. Taking into account this taphonomic variable for explaining the apparent overabundance of head bones, the different proportions of these in llamas and vicuñas shows clearly: 5.5 per cent in llamas against 1.3 per cent in vicuñas for skull; 6.8 per cent in llamas against 3.1 per cent in vicuñas for mandibles; and 15 per cent for llamas against 4.5 per cent in vicuñas for incisors. That is to say, in

Femorae: 2 femur specimens were determined as llama because of the little amplitude of the trochanter fossa and a third one, because of the morphology of the supratrochlear fossa. Thanks to this same taxonomic key, other 2 specimens were assigned to vicuña. Other 3 more specimens were assigned to vicuña because they presented, being llama Offspring size, their distal or proximal epiphyses fussed and this only happens in Adult llamas and vicuñas. Thus, out of the 80 identified femur specimens, 3 were assigned to llama, 5 to vicuña, and 72 to llama/vicuña. Patellae: We have determined 28 patellae specimens assigned to llama/vicuña. Tibiae: We have identified 51 tibia specimens. 5 of them were determined as llama upon the basis of the morphology of the proximal tuberosity, the medial side of the diaphysis, and that of the tibial crest. 1 specimen was determined as vicuña due to the morphology of the proximal tuberosity, and other 6, because, being llama Offspring size, they presented fussed distal epiphyses anyway and this only happens in Adult or Subadult ages. Hence, 5 tibia specimens were assigned to llama, 7 to vicuña, and 39 to category llama/vicuña. Tarsal bones: The tarsal bones that were identified as llama/vicuña are: 8 first tarsal bones, 35 navicular bones, 24 entocuneiform bones, 30 cuboid bones, 28 fibular bones, and 57 astragali. From 56 identified calcaneus specimens, 8 are llama Offspring size but have fussed tuberosity, for what, since this only happens in Juvenile 2, Subadult, or Adult ages, they were assigned to vicuña. The remaining 48 calcaneus specimens remain in category llama/vicuña. Metatarsal: We have identified 31 metatarsal specimens. One of them, since it is Adult llama size and presents

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Figure 7.10: Percentage proportions of each bone against the total of bones of the taxa, compared to the proportions according to the anatomic expectation (ncamelid=2,430; nvicuña=164; nllama=73).

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THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS llamas, head bones represent between the double (mandibles), the triple (incisors), and the quadruple (skulls) of vicuña bones. To put this differently, inside TC1’s house, between two and four times more head bones were deposited when what was being deposited were llamas and not vicuñas. Molars and premolars were not determined at specific levels, for what they cannot be incorporated to this analysis. Canines, instead, reflect a radically different position: the percentage in vicuñas superposes to the anatomic expectations, but we could not determine llama canines. This might be effect of the size of the sample, determination errors, or the possible different age of death of llamas and vicuñas. If llamas were mainly culled as offspring -as the different herd management models seem to imply (Cribb 1991; Flannery, Marcus, and Reynolds 1989)-, it is less probable that their canines got into the record, at least respect vicuña canines if it is true that these were preferentially killed after the age of canine eruption.

possibility of specific determination, a clear difference in the attitudes towards llama and vicuña lumbar segments can be observed. Lumbar vertebrae represent 11 per cent of the specimens assigned to llama and 1.9 per cent of the specimens assigned to vicuña. Though not identical, coxals show a similar situation. While none vicuña coxal was identified, they represent 5.5 per cent of llama bones: 1.1 per cent of camelid bones against an anatomic expectation of 0.5 per cent. Sacral vertebrae, instead, were not specifically determined and they represent 0.2 per cent of camelid bones against an expectation of 2.6 per cent. Lumbar and sacral segments seem to present a similar behaviour to that of toraxic segments and chest; that is, they all were deposited inside the house lees frequently than what can be anatomically expected. Given the possibilities of specific discrimination, instead, we can observe different attitudes towards llama and vicuña lumbar segments. It is possible to extend this appreciation to coxals too.

The cervical portion of the vertebral column presents some problems that make its interpretation rather difficult. The low quantity of atlases can be due to little conservation (0.2 per cent in front of an anatomic expectation of 0.5 per cent), and both atlases and axes could not be specifically determined. The proportion of cervical vertebrae is slightly higher (3 per cent) than the anatomic expectation (2.6 per cent) in the curve of camelids. The proportion of cervical vertebrae in the curve of vicuñas is higher (0.6 per cent) than its complete absence in the curve of llamas, though we should take into account that this might be effect of the inherent difficulties for the specific determination of these bones.

As a whole, axial bones seem to be represented below anatomic expectations. That is, the times in which axial bones ended up outside the house were more than those in which they ended up inside. It is also possible to say that, as skull, mandible, incisors, lumbar vertebrae, and coxal specimens reflect, axial bones of llamas tended to be placed inside the house more frequently than vicuña bones.21 In terms of frequency of bone specimens, we can also state that more axial bones of llamas were deposited inside TC1’s house.22 Since these observations regarding axial bones are based on percentage proportions, appendicular bones as a whole must have had a complementary trajectory. Camelid appendicular bones as a whole are represented in higher proportions than those anatomically expected. This can be a factor partially dependent on the greater bone density of long bones and, thus, on their greater probabilities of conservation. The differences between the observed frequencies, nonetheless, allow assuming that taphonomic variables do not fully explain the variation, and that, hence, other tendencies could be as well recognized in the record. Such is the case of the differences between the observed frequencies of long bones: humeri represent 3 per cent, radii-ulnae 5 per cent, femorae 3.3 per cent, and tibiae 2.1 per cent of the camelid bone specimens against the 1 per cent anatomically expected in each case. In the cases of foreleg (humerus and radius-ulna) and backleg (femur and tibia) first phalanxes, the proportions of each bone unit are higher in the distribution of llama bones than in the distribution of vicuña bones. Humeri represent 12.3 per cent of llama bones and 8.3 per cent of vicuña

The toraxic portion of the vertebral column could not be discriminated at a specific level. It presents, besides, a really low representation in comparison to anatomic expectations. Again, this can be explained by taphonomic problems of differential conservation, but the low 0.6 per cent of presence of toraxic vertebrae against an expectation of 6.2 per cent is most probably reflecting, instead, the combined effect of the low bone density and the tendency to deposit toraxic segments outside the house. Ribs, though with much smaller difference than the expected, reproduce the same pattern: 9 per cent against 12.5 per cent. The figure of the percentage of ribs is quite likely overestimated due to fragmentation problems; that is to say, it measures rib fragments and not complete ribs while anatomic expectations always refer to complete bone units. Toraxic vertebrae and ribs, hence, might have behaved as one sole unit, and, if so, they might have tended, as a whole, to have different destinies inside TC1’s house. The sternum, which might have well formed part of the same unit, is also underrepresented. Regrettably, we cannot infer differences in the attitudes towards llama and vicuña ribs.

21

However, maybe because of the older age of death of vicuñas, canines present an inverse tendency. 22 For skulls, incisors, lumbar vertebrae, coxals, and scapulae, there is a difference in favour of llamas, what at the same time approaches pelvic and scapular waists to the behaviour of axial bones better than to appendicular bones. On the other hand, for canines and cervical vertebrae, there is a difference, already commented in this chapter, in favour of vicuñas.

On its side, the lumbar portion of the vertebral column is little bit less than half the anatomic expectation: 1.7 per cent against 3.6 per cent. But in this case, thanks to the 197

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Artiodactyla bones can be considered Camelidae. Out of them, only 237 were able to be assigned to Lama glamma or Vicugna vicugna (Molina) through the different procedures described above. Hence, only 10.6 per cent of the Camelidae bones -or 9.7 per cent of the Artiodactyla bones, or 6.2 per cent of TC1’s bone collection- could be assigned to llamas or vicuñas -though we could confidently assume that almost 99 per cent of mammal bones belonged to one or the other. Therefore, analyzing the respective distribution of each one of these two specific categories is much more than mere methodological concern, and, in any case, it is the condition of possibility for interpreting the bone data as such. Even though the statistic representativity of 10 per cent of the specifically determined bones might be questionable, it is clear that such statistic representativity is based on the pretension that the remaining 90 per cent corresponds to one of both specific categories and not to any other whose presence could not be observed, and on the assumption that procedures of specific determination do not introduce bias as significant as to make the determination as a whole tendentious.

bones; radii-ulnae represent 16.4 per cent of llama bones and 15.3 per cent of vicuña bones; femorae represent 4.1 per cent of llama bones against 3.2 per cent of vicuña bones; and tibiae represent 6.8 per cent of llama bones and only 4.5 per cent of vicuña bones. But taking into account absolute values (that is, the total of each bone per taxonomic unit) instead of percentages, there are more humeri, radii-ulnae, femorae, calcaneus, metapodia, and first and second phalanxes of vicuña than of llama. If we compare taxonomic units -llama vs. vicuña- for each specifically determined bone, we will obtain a rather different, though concordant, panorama than the one analyzed when we were comparing the frequency or proportion of each bone (skulls, mandibles, etc.) within the group assigned to each taxonomic unit. Even eliminating those bones that have been 100 per cent determined as vicuña -as it is the case of canines, cervical vertebrae, second phalanxes, calcaneus, and metapodiaor 100 per cent determined as llama -coxals- from the analysis, the pattern is still quite clear, because the absence of one of both taxa could just indicate technical incapacity for determining it better than a real absence. Llama taxa predominates in skulls, incisors, lumbar vertebrae, and scapulae; vicuña taxa predominates in humeri, radii-ulnae, first phalanxes, femorae, and tibiae. Both taxa remain equal in mandibles. All this reaffirms the pattern of llama predominance among axial bones, and vicuña predominance among appendicular bones. Nevertheless, at least in the first sectors of phalanxes, both taxa maintain a similar curve. Even though humeri, radii-ulnae, femorae, and tibiae represent, as it has already been described, higher proportions in llama bones than in vicuña bones, these last ones appear, respectively, 9 , 17, 13, and 8 per cent more frequently than llama bones.

As a whole, 30 per cent of the specifically determined camelid bones were determined as Lama glamma,23 and 70 per cent as Vicugna vicugna.24 It does not seem outrageous to assume, then, that the distribution of camelid bones as a whole (Artiodactyla, Camelidae, Lama sp., Vicugna vicugna) can be explained the same way, that is, 70 per cent of the distribution as Vicugna vicugna and 30 per cent of the distribution as Lama glamma. The distribution of Camelidae bones exceeds the anatomic expectations in heads (skulls and mandibles), first forelegs (humeri and radii-ulna), first backlegs (femorae, tibiae, astragali, and calcaneus), and distal legs (metapodia and phalanxes). Different parts are represented in percentages really close to anatomic expectations: cervical segments (atlases, axes, and other cervical vertebrae), pelvic (coxals) and scapular waists (scapulae), carpal bones (pisiform, scaphoid, cuneiform, lunate, magnum, and trapezoid bones), tarsal bones (navicular, entocuneiform, cuboid, and fibular bones), and metacarpal and metatarsal. Toraxic segments of the vertebral column and ribs (toraxic vertebrae, ribs, costal cartilages, and sternebrae), and sacral-lumbar segments (lumbar and sacral vertebrae) are represented below anatomic expectations. Other bone units, such as teeth, first tarsal bones, and sesamoid bones, are represented in really low proportions.

The distal sectors of phalanxes are worth a separate mention. Not taking into account third phalanxes, which, because they do not present lines of fusion, could not be specifically discriminated, and even leaving second phalanxes momentarily aside too -because out of a total of 180 camelid second phalanxes we could only determined 33 as vicuña and none as llama and, thus, we could question the capability for identifying llama second phalanxes-, first phalanxes show a really clear tendency. Out of 281 first phalanxes determined as camelid, 22 were osteometrically discriminated 20 as vicuña and 2 as llama, and other 24 were discriminated, through the analysis of the relationship between state of fusion and size, 20 as vicuña and 4 as llama. In total, 40 first phalanxes were determined as vicuña and 6 as llama. This makes the pattern observed for second phalanxes, the same as the patterns for calcaneus and metapodia, among which 100 per cent of the specific determinations corresponded to vicuña, more consistent.

Vicuña distribution, hence, should resemble camelid distribution in a 70 per cent. The parts of the skeleton of vicuña that exceed anatomic expectations are also heads 23 Or as any other multi-species combination that, in front of the absence of any determination of other integrants of the genre, it is convenient to consider as Lama glamma. 24 Or as any other multi-species or bi-genus combination that, in front of the absence of any determination of other integrants of Lama genre, it is convenient to consider as Vicugna genre.

Summing up, out of the 2,445 Artiodactyla bone specimens, 90.1 per cent belong to Camelidae family and none to other Artiodactyla group, for what all the 198

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Figure 7.11: Differences between the frequencies of llama and vicuña bones. Positive columns indicate bones with llama predominance and negative columns indicate bones with vicuña predominance. The bones with equivalent or not certain interpretation are not indicated (see text).

(skulls and mandibles), first forelegs (humeri and radiiulna), first backlegs (femorae, tibiae, and calcaneus), and distal legs (metapodia and first and third phalanxes) (Figures 7.10 and 7.11). The parts that are represented in similar percentages to anatomic expectations are postcranial axial bones (cervical, toraxic, lumbar, and sacral vertebrae, ribs, costal cartilages, and sternebrae), coxal, carpal bones, patellae, tarsal bones, third phalanxes, astragali, and sesamoid bones. Almost all the differences between camelid and vicuña distributions can be assigned to the different possibilities of specific determination of each bone unit. This way, many of the bones that appear represented in lower proportions in vicuña distributions against camelid distributions are exactly those that could not be specifically discriminated and were left, therefore, just assigned to family level; such is the case of toraxic vertebrae, ribs, costal cartilages, sternebrae, sacral vertebrae, carpal and tarsal bones, patellae, third phalanxes, astragali, and sesamoid bones. Incisors and canines, on the other hand and because they can be easily discriminated, tended to form part of specific groups more frequently and, thus, to artificially increase their proportions inside such groups (Figure 7.11). The distribution of vicuña bones follows, in general, the distribution of camelid bones quite closely.25 Next, we will analyze what happens with the remaining 30 per cent.

(scapula, humerus, and radius-ulna), blackleg (femur and tibia), and feet (first phalanxes). Below anatomic expectations, there were cervical segments (cervical vertebrae), toraxic segments (toraxic vertebrae, ribs, costal cartilages, and sternebrae), carpal bones, tarsal bones, metapodia, and distal ends of feet (second and third phalanxes). As in the case of vicuñas, the differences between llama distributions and camelid distributions can be partially assigned to technical disability for specific determination; such is the case of toraxic vertebrae, ribs, costal cartilages, sternebrae, carpal and tarsal bones, and third phalanxes. Other differences between these llama distributions are more probably due to different attitudes towards each one of these species. Llama distribution shows a peak between lumbar vertebrae and coxals that cannot be observed among camelids or vicuñas, and this peak could well be accompanied by a favourable tendency towards axial bones as a whole. This can be observed in the graphic of absolute differences between llama and vicuña bones, which shows an inclination towards llamas in skull, incisors, lumbar vertebrae, coxal, and scapula frequencies even though, as a whole, llama bones are less than half of vicuña bones (Figure 7.11). In short, which are the bones that used to be more frequently deposited inside TC1’s dwelling domestic space (Beech 1995)? It seems logic to assume that the bones that were deposited in such spatial context were probably closely related to consumption circumstances mediated by processing activities that, for some reason, used to be concentrated in the inner domestic space too. One of such circumstances could have taken place when consumption needed previous longer and/or more complex procedures of extraction of nutrients, more elaborated cooking processes, and very likely boiling for

Llama Cuisine The llama bones that were deposited inside TC1’s house in higher proportions than the ones anatomically expected correspond to the head (skull, mandible, incisors), sacrallumbar area (lumbar vertebrae and coxal), foreleg 25

To put it differently, “in a 70 per cent”.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA preparation in stews. We would not be talking about the bones with greater quantities of associated flesh here, but about those related to food of more difficult extraction without cooking and more easily and/or profitably used through long boiling. Such would be the case of the bones of the head (skull and mandible), which contain endocranial organs, tongue, gums, and little attached muscles and organs (facial muscles, eyes, etc.). On the other hand, some long bones of the legs, such as femorae and humeri, are associated to important quantities of flesh, but these as well as those poorer in flesh -such as radii-ulnae, tibiae, and metapodia- are quite rich in marrow and bone fat, two products that are more profitably used if boiled.26 All these bones are fractured and many of them show marks of punctual dynamic loads that caused clean fractures on the diaphyses exactly as the ones needed for procuring the marrow inside them. The bones of the head and legs are precisely the ones that appear in greater proportions in camelid distribution. Hence, we can explain great part of the conformation of the bone assemblage by appealing to the context of final consumption necessarily mediated by cooking procedures that included long boiling. Cooking and consumption might have well taken place inside the closed and windprotected inner space of the house, on some bonfire that used to work in the centre of both rooms. The bones of the head and legs tended to be processed and consumed inside the inner domestic space, and they were afterwards incorporated as wastes to inner accumulation deposits, partially because of functional reasons such as long boiling in pots, partially due to social reasons such as the preparation and consumption of the transformed food. The remains of bonfires found inside both rooms, the significant quantities of ashes -quite likely coming from the cleaning of such inner bonfires- filling the numerous pits, the finding of many pottery shreds with soot stains on their external walls inside the closed domestic spaces, and the presence of important quantities of basalt tools apt for fracturing long bones and with noticeable traces of punctual loads on soft materials27 in this same social space are other evidences that support this interpretation of the domestic culinary.

hypothesis of food consumption as determinant factor for their contextual deposition. We could appeal to our previous idea according to which bones deposited inside the house tended to be those that needed final processing and consumption inside such inner space. Nevertheless, in what regards phalanxes, it is most unlikely that such processing had anything to do with their associated food properties. It is more probable, instead, that it was related to vicuña hides that might have been processed inside the house for extracting wool. It is true that the quantity of wool that the feet of vicuñas have can be considered insignificant, and that maybe there is no functionally necessary reason at all for carrying into the house hides with feet still attached. However, both the fact that the proportion of phalanxes is higher than the proportion of other camelid bones and the fact that great part of such phalanxes were determined as vicuña point out to their more probable association to vicuña hides with wool. This would certainly be a significantly different resource both in quality and procedure of appropriation to llama wool. While appropriation of llama wool did not imply the death of the animal, appropriation of vicuña wool did.28 Wool is a final resource in the case of vicuñas, and a domesticated one in the case of llamas.29 Appropriation of vicuña wool as resource implies handling the hides once they have been already separated from the rest of the animal. Own observations about culling, hideextraction, and butchering of llamas in Antofagasta de la Sierra and Antofalla allow affirming that ‘feet’ (first, second, and third phalanxes) are hardly ever consumed as food and difficult to skin, and that, sometimes, they remain with their hide attached to the rest of the animal’s hide and they are transported with it; sometimes the hides are even tied up from the ‘feet’ still attached to them. This does not say anything about some necessary relationship between ‘feet’ and transportation or some other stage related to hide processing. Nonetheless, it does allow thinking about a possible, though certainly not necessary, relationship between hides and feet. Feet, the same as hides, are not food, and nothing pervades that they can be transported together. When hides are ‘sheared’, the little wool on the feet, which otherwise would be lost when the animal is skinned, could well be as well ‘peeled off’. Once feet were sheared, they could be left deposited, even with hide on them, by the waste produced as part of the same activity. This way, phalanxes could have accompanied hide with wool until it got inside the house, where it would have been sheared, and after what wool, hide, and phalanxes would have had different destinies. Phalanxes, together with the stone, hide, and wool wastes produced by the use of cutting instruments for taking the wool off the hide, would have

But the element that appears with more frequency in the proportional distribution -mainly assigned to vicuñascannot be explained this way. Vicuña for Export Phalanxes represent the highest frequencies in camelid and vicuña distributions. Nonetheless, it is evident that phalanxes were not especially attractive in what regards flesh, marrow, and fat. At the same time, phalanxes tend to appear complete or with dry fractures, and without any marks of punctual dynamic load for extraction of marrow or marks of cuttings in general. Hence, we can discard the 26

28

An evaluation of the value of culinary treatment can be found in Wandsnider (1997). 27 We describe basalt tools below.

Except in social contexts of great availability of coordinated labour force, as it would be the case of chaku rituals directed by the Inka. 29 Or, respectively, primary and secondary.

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THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS LABEL 30.85 30.38 30.37 3.1 7.0 4.9 3.0 20.0 30.3 18.7 24.144.3 30.0 20.0 18.0 20.0.1 20.151 64.0 30.2 3.16 30.82 30.29 30.130 30.0 30.39 3.0

DESCRIPTION Human hair fibers, without apparent order Vicuña and llama fibers without apparent order Bundle of long vicuña fibers half-twisted Fragments of vicuña fibers with different thickness (in S and in Z), one of them braided, one fragment of a net of vegetable fibers and a vicuña wool. Human hair fibers, without apparent order Human hair fibers and vicuña fibers without apparent order, but separated Vicuña fibers braided around a wood spindle (fragmented) Vicuña fibers compressed without apparent order sticked to a wood stick apparently without preparation. Vicuña fibers compressed without apparent order. Bundle of human hair fibers Bundle of vicuña fibers cut off. Wool of vicuña fibers (twisted in S) and two vicuña strings (spinned in Z). Vicuña fibers without apparent order Wool light red dyed and disconnected vicuña fibers (undyed) Wool of vicuña fibers cut off Wool of llama fibers in S 2 fragments of vicuña fibers with another sticked substance (spinning refuses?) Wool of llama fibers cut off Fragment of net textile made with vicuña wool twisted in Z String of vicuña fibers unspinned Z-twisted fragment of two vicuña threads Fragment of llama wool twisted in S Fragments of vicuña fiber, two of them with sticked leather Braided thread with three vicuña threads in S Bundle of fibers and fragments of vicuña wool (probably rodent nest) Table 7.2: Fibres finds from TC1.

Figure 7.12: Vicuña fibres finds. In the middle and to the left, groups of fibres with substances, probably shearing or spinning refuses, attached to them; to the right, twisted vicuña fibres.

been incorporated to the specific waste of shearing actions.30

and refuses), wastes of production and use of stone cutting tools, and taphonomic patterns.

Besides the pattern of phalanxes, three groups of additional facts allow supporting this hypothesis according to which vicuña hides would have been sheared inside the house. These groups refer to the two different types of waste we should be expecting after hide shearing activities: wool fibre and hide wastes (cuttings

Fibres We list fibre finds of the excavation of TC1 (Table 7.2). Remains of fibre refuses with substances attached to them (dirt) (Figure 7.12) and remains of hide cuttings with hair (Figure 7.13) were probably produced during vicuña hide shearing actions. Other remains of spun and non spun fibres allow inferring later steps of the processing of vicuña wool (Figure 7.14).

30 Other interpretations relate circulation of camelid hides to phalanxes too (Assandri 1991; Silveira 1979).

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Figure 7.13: Cuttings of vicuña hair from TC1, probably shearing refuses. To the left, two leather cuttings with hair; to the right, a hair cutting in which the effect of a cutting instrument can be observed.

Figure 7.14: Evidences of vicuña wool processing found in TC1. Above and to the left, a wooden stick with vicuña wool attached to it. Below and to the left, wooden stick with twisted vicuña yarn rolled around it, probably the axis of a spindle. To the right, fragment of vicuña yarn textile.

technological-functional sequence according to which cutting tools with natural edges would have been touched up in order to maintain such edges, and another one, according to which nuclei would have been reused as hammers and, sometimes, as rabots too. The instrumental group, thus, seems to have been quite ruled and oriented to very specific actions that were going to be carried inside the dwelling space. The most frequent artefact categories are three:

Basalt The general characteristics of basalt items can be summed up the following way. Evidenced by the high percentage of cortex remains, it was mainly developed from little or medium boulders or pebbles. Through percussion flaking and irregular retouch (though some samples do show greater care), cutting tools were made from flake and rabots, from nucleus. There seems to be a 202

THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS Cutting tools: medium to long tools with straight-convex edges, sometimes with very sharp (30º angle natural edges) or sharp (edges with one-side marginal 45º angle retouch) edges (Figure 7.15).

high density of blows on soft materials (such as bone) in edges angled from 75º to 90º. These are reused nuclei or tools shaped through bifacial gross flaking (Figure 7.16). Rabots: instruments with one-side retouched steep edges (Figure 7.17).

Hammers: massive instruments though of smaller dimensions than cutting tools, with one or two spots of

Figure 7.15: TC1’s basalt cutting instruments.

Figure 7.16: Basalt instruments probably used for exerting dynamic load on semi-hard material (bone).

Figure 7.17: Basalt abrupt extended edge tool, probably a rabot.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Tebenquiche Chico. We did observe, instead, burrows of little sygmodontinae rodents in the archaeological strata. We have recovered sygmodontinae bones, some full or almost complete skeletons inside old burrows, and we have even observed living chiricotes over the stones of the walls. All rodent marks present the same shape and size characteristics, which can be associated, for a start, to the morphology and size of small rodents. Currently, these little rodents live in burrows inside the walls of the inhabited houses and outposts32 in a commensalistic relationship with humans. It is probable, then, that the presence of remains of sygmodontinae inside TC1’s habitational rooms corresponds to similar past circumstances, in which these mice would have lived with humans, feeding themselves with little wastes, and leaving marks in some bones (Figure 7.18).

Figure 7.18: Proximal sector of a camelid first phalanx with markings made by the incisors of a little rodent.

The previous analysis, even though it is far away from attempting accurate functional assignations, allows supporting the interpretation of the bone data. According to this one, the bones that are deposited in such spatial context tend to be closely related to consumption circumstances mediated by processing activities that for some reason tended to be concentrated in the inner domestic space. Skull bones and long bones would have been associated to culinary transformation through boiling. The presence of relevant quantities of hammers could have well been associated to the fracture pattern related to extraction of bone marrow we were able to observe on long bones. At the same time, the significant amount of cutting tools might have been related to the activity of taking the wool off vicuña hides, activity that, on the other hand, would have left remains of wool and hide refuses and phalanxes attached to them incorporated to the room. The preliminary morphologic analysis of the basalt tool-kit31 supports, in first place, the interpretation of the inner location of hide shearing activities every time the discarded bone and woollen elements that are related to such shearing appear associated to the useful and quite likely actually used tools for shearing. Next, we explore the taphonomic consequences of this interpretation.

The bones that show rodent marks in greater quantities are first, third, and second phalanxes, and sesamoid bones. As we have pointed out above, phalanxes and sometimes sesamoid bones too were probably discarded together with hide, flesh, and tendons attached to them after they had been separated from the rest of the hide once this had been brought inside the domestic space for extraction of wool. If that had been the case, phalanxes would have been discarded without being consumed by people but, apparently, not ceasing to be a very much interesting dish for the little mice. Among the camelid bones with rodent marks, 12 (8 per cent) were assigned to vicuña, and 1 (1 per cent) to llama. Out of these marked bones, 63 (41 per cent) are first, second, and third phalanxes, and 72 (47 per cent) are bones from the distal ends of phalanxes (phalanxes and sesamoid bones) (Figure 7.19). This backs up the idea according to which these parts of vicuñas might have gotten inside the house together with the hide -and with the hide, the wool- so to be afterwards separated and discarded in there. From the point of view of the proportion of specimens with rodent marks on them inside each bone category, phalanxes are followed in frequency by carpal and tarsal bones (Figure 7.20). From the perspective of the interpretation of the integrity of such bone groups, we could assume that the bones with hide and soft tissues attached to them -phalanxes and sesamoid bones- could have well been the ones more affected by rodents and, thus, their frequencies would possibly be quite underestimated. We should also take into account some possible effect due to transportation, because rodents could have modified the spatial patterns of the finds of these bones by carrying them all along and across their burrows. As well, we should add little carpal and tarsal bones among the favourite targets of rodents. Nonetheless, we have not observed the much more disturbing action of Ctenomys sp. because, for a start, we did not find any remains of this genre and we did not identified its burrows inside any of the rooms either.

Taphonomy 1: Action by Rodents 6.25 per cent of the determined specimens, a percentage significant enough for deserving attention, present rodent marks. The rodents we can find both in local fauna and in TC1’s zooarchaeological data are -smaller to biggersygmodontinae (Phyllotis sp. cf. xanthopygus, Akodon sp. or Abrotex sp., Neotomys ebriosus and Eligmodontia sp.) and caviomorfa (Ctenomys sp., Lagidium viscacia, Abrocoma sp. and Chinchilla sp.). Settlement TC1 coincides with specific habitats of chiricote (sygmodontinae) and oculto (Ctenomys sp.). Both active and abandoned burrows of oculto can be seen in the surrounding areas of TC1’s habitational rooms, agricultural fields, river ravines, and the whole terrace in general. We have not observed entrances of oculto inside TC1’s habitational rooms or any other domestic unit in 31 Chemical analyses of the substances attached to the edges and microwear analyses are currently being developed.

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Figure 7.19: Frequency of finds of camelid bone specimens with rodent marks. Notice the predominance of phalanxes and sesamoid bones.

Figure 7.20: Percentage representation of bone specimens with rodent marks against the total of specimens of each camelid anatomic bone category.

Taphonomy 2: Action by Carnivores Only 26 determined bones (1.06 per cent of the total) showed traces of carnivore canines (Figure 7.21). From them, 5 were identified as vicuña and none as llama. First phalanxes, followed by mandibles, humeri, and femorae, are the most frequent bone category with carnivore marks (Figure 7.22). The last three bones, however, are among the favourite targets of carnivores; phalanxes are less appealing except they have soft tissues attached to them. Since first and second phalanxes represent, together and just by themselves, 27 per cent of the bones with carnivore marks, their attractive must have been increased by being discarded with attached soft tissues. From the 5 first phalanxes that show carnivore traces, and matching the expected pattern, 3 were assigned to vicuña, and none to llama.

Figure 7.21: Two camelid first phalanxes with their distal ends affected by carnivore action. They were found together with the carpal bones and the distal metacarpal in anatomic position in a context that was interpreted as roof fall.

Currently, there are foxes in the nearby areas of the site, and people set traps for them between the stones of the ruins. Although there are visits of lions or pumas (Puma concolor Linnaeus) from time to time, they hardly ever show themselves near the settlements. Besides, while grey foxes usually feed themselves -though not before human presence- with carrion, lions tend to present hunting behaviours. We have not recorded current presence of smaller felids. The little frequency of

There are no evidences of presence of domestic or wild dogs (Canis familiaris) in the site. The carnivores in TC1’s zooarchaeological data include felid Puma concolor (phalanxes and metatarsals, which might indicate conservation of claws) and Felidae cf. Lynchailurus, and grey fox Lycalopex griseus. Among the carnivores that might have acted over the bone items, grey foxes could be the responsible in this case. 205

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Figure 7.22: Frequency of camelid bone specimens with carnivore marks found in TC1.

Figure 7.23: Percentage representation of bone specimens with carnivore marks against the total of specimens of each camelid anatomic bone category.

217 bones, present burning. Although some of them were pretty blistered while others were just a little scalded, in general, all of them were carbonized. Anyhow, it is interesting that a significant percentage of bones suffered the action of fire and, even so, could still be taxonomically determined. This certainly suggests, besides, that, potentially, a much more significant number of bones that also suffered the action of heat must have suffered it to the extent of becoming undeterminable or, simply, that they just became ashes and could not be recovered. Of all the burnt camelid bones, 15 were determined as vicuña, and 1 as llama.

carnivore marks observed can be taken as rate of the impact of action by foxes over the bone assemblage. Only 1 per cent of the bones could have been attacked by foxes during occasional absences of the inhabitants or periods of abandonment. If the impact of action by foxes can be treated as measure of the frequency of abandonment, then these could have been not as frequent as they would have had to for offering too much carrion to these canids. In summary, out of the analysis of carnivore marks we obtain a second taphonomic key that supports the hypothesis of discarding of vicuña feet with hide once they would have been separated from the rest of the hide inside the habitational rooms in order to obtain wool. Despite the fact that phalanxes are one of the main targets of carnivores among the bones deposited inside habitational rooms, pelvis, dorsal vertebrae, and mandibles were, proportionally, the bones most frequently attacked by these taphonomic agents. In Figure 7.23, which illustrates the percentages of specimens marked by carnivores against the total frequency of each bone, we can consider the impact of carnivores, most probably grey foxes, quite low. This would concur with a low frequency of abandonment of the dwelling structures. Taphonomy 3: Burning

Figure 7.24 shows three peaks in the frequencies of burnt bone specimens. The most important represents second phalanxes; the second one, ribs; and the third one, first phalanxes. In this case, the group of first, second, and third phalanxes represents 29 per cent of the burnt bones. Ribs represent the 12 per cent. Both phalanxes and ribs, on the other hand, maintain the same percentage of burning, that is, 12 per cent of each mentioned bone is burnt. Now, the circumstances because of which phalanxes and ribs could have ended up in the fire might not have necessarily been the same. The procedure for cooking ribs -flame-roasting them33- could have caused that many rib fragments were burnt, and only one every

8.87 per cent of the identified camelid specimens, that is,

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Figure 7.24: Frequency of burnt camelid bone specimens.

Taphonomy 4: Weathering

eight of them survived to show the action of heat. Phalanxes, instead, were most likely not consumed; in fact, they generally do not present clean fractures or cutting marks and it is still less probable that they were roasted or directly exposed to fire action for their eventual cooking (Figure 7.25). Everything seems to indicate, thus, that phalanxes might have been exposed to fire probably in order to get rid of them once they had been discarded inside the house.

Only 153 bone specimens (6.25 per cent of TC1’s bones) present an advanced stage of weathering (Figure 7.27). In this group, radii-ulnae, first phalanxes,34 and distal metapodia, which are interestingly bones of high density and, thus, more resistant to weathering, are the predominant ones (Figure 7.28).

Regarding the proportion of burning of each bone, navicular tarsal bones are the ones that present the highest rate (Figure 7.26). The remaining tarsal bones, carpal bones, second phalanxes, ribs, and metatarsals present considerable burning rates (higher than 10 per cent). This happens to be a group quite similar to the one described by rodent marks rating, so it could even be indicating an exposition to fire as secondary deposit of some little bones (tarsal and carpal bones, second phalanxes) that at the same time might have had greater chances of suffering rodent attacks.

34 It is worth noticing that only 6.4 per cent of the first phalanxes proportion that does not significantly deviate from the media for TC1’s bone assemblage- were found in advanced stages of weathering. According to Olivera and his collaborators (Olivera et al. 1991-1992), the conservation of hide diminishes and/or delays the process of weathering of bones, for what, following the hypothesis of discarding of phalanxes with hide inside the house, we should expect a weathering rate noticeably lower in these bones. Evidence, nonetheless, despite it does not contradict these expectations, does not support them either. It is probable that the expectations created in the future of bone assemblages in open air contexts are not directly applicable to groups deposited under roofs or in the interstices of stone walls, where the factor of conservation thanks to hide probably has considerably lower values.

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Figure 7.27: Camelid phalanx in advanced stage of weathering recovered in TC1.

Figure 7.25: Burnt camelid bone specimens found in TC1.

Figure 7.26: Percentage representation of burnt bone specimens against the total of specimens of each camelid anatomic bone category.

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Figure 7.28: Frequency of weathered bone specimens found in TC1.

Figure 7.29: Percentage representation of weathered bone specimens against the total of specimens of each camelid anatomic bone category.

conditions. Hence, the analysis of weathering reaffirms, at least partially, the previous interpretation regarding those cooking practices in which some parts of the animals would have been involved. Long cooking in water could have then been the cause of the fact that long bones of high density and, thus, more long-lasting than others, significantly advanced in their weathering giving room, this way, to the observed pattern of weathered bones.

Analysing the weathering rate of each bone, we can also confirm a similar panorama (Figure 7.29). Patellae and pisiform bones are weathered in more than 20 per cent of their distribution; sacral vertebrae and radii-ulnae in more than 15 per cent; metatarsals, distal metapodia, humeri, metacarpals, cuneiform bones, mandibles, and incisors in more than 10 per cent. The group of weathered bones can be defined as one in which bones of really low density (patellae and sacral vertebrae for example) are associated to others of really high density (long bones in general). A possible interpretation of this weathering pattern could concur with the previously mentioned hypothesis: the presence of part of the bones, mainly those with marrow, inside the room would have been due to its long boiling. This processing could have made these bones to loose great part of their elasticity and suffer a quicker deterioration than the one expected under normal

Taphonomy 5: Ages of Death The analysis of the ages allows evaluating if there is some kind of differential weathering that might have affected younger individuals to a greater extent and, thus, produced an artificial pattern of age representation. Ages have been classified according to criterions suggested by,

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA up to 18 months old), and the other by Adults, SubAdults, and Juveniles (generally J2, that is, from 19 months old on). The possible error factors appear precisely among Juvenile individuals because it is there where some limits (TPQ and TAQ) get superposed. Together with Offsprings, we have grouped specimens from sub-classes C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5, and all those specimens that belonged to individuals whose age of death was assigned through termini ante quem (non-fussed bones). Together with Adults and SubAdults, we have grouped specimens from classes S and A, and all those others that belonged to individuals whose age of death was assigned through termini post quem (fussed bones). While the group of bigger individuals, generally older than 18 months old, presents a weathering media of 2.33, the group of smaller individuals, generally younger than 19 months old, presents a weathering media of 2.13. This does not only allow discarding a bias against the representation of bone specimens of small individuals but, also, affirming a relatively homogeneous weathering according to ages of death (Figure 7.31).

Table 7.3: Weathering stage of camelid bone specimens according to the age of death of the individual estimated over the basis of the state of epiphyseal fusion.

among others, Herrera (1988) and Puig (1988), that is, fusion and teeth-eruption stages. Out of the application of these criterions, two types of aging come out: age classes and TPQ and TAQ of the death of the individual (Table 7.3 and Figure 7.30). With the purpose of simplifying the dispersion of the data and making its analysis possible, we have grouped the specimens in two age groups, one formed by Offsprings and Juveniles (generally J1, that is,

Synopsis: Living Llamas and Dead Vicuñas The pattern that comes out from the analysis of age groups per camelid taxa could not be clearer (Figure 7.32). In most of the cases, the llama bones that were deposited inside the house belonged to individuals that had not reached maximum body growth or sexual maturity yet. The pattern of llama bones is three times

Figure 7.30: Frequency of probable assignations of bone specimens to age classes. Notice that many specimens can be assigned to several earlier or later age classes to their TAQ and TPQ. The indetermination in SubAdults class answers to the imprecision of the available data regarding ages of fusion.

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Figure 7.31: Percentage proportion of weathered bones specimens per immature (to the left) and mature (to the right) age groups.

bones belonged to adult animals whose survival beyond the maximum growing of the flesh at 18 months old, hence, cannot be explained within an exploitation only oriented to meat production. Other possible zootechnical aims, such as wool and/or freight strength, could explain these adult bone specimens that, in terms of the accumulation of death patterns, represent much more than a quarter of the herds (Flannery, Marcus, and Reynolds 1989). Basing themselves on the analysis of groups created by current herders of goats and llamas in Susques, Jujuy, Yacobaccio and his collaborators state that “herd management oriented to mixed production (meat, wool, and transport) and age profiles with high percentage of adult or mature animals can coexist” (Yacobaccio et al. 1998: 79-80). According to the data they recovered -and appreciably diverging from the data we have recovered from TC1’s bone assemblage- only between five and eleven per cent of the specimens correspond to bones of immature animals. It is really difficult to evaluate the applicability of specific ethnographic cases to contexts of archaeological interpretation, all the more if we take into account that, in Susques, there are both goat and llama herds, two mammals of not entirely concordant requirements, habits, labour processes, and products (Yacobaccio et al. 1998). It is also probable, besides, that the impact of secondary aims on meat production is underestimated in the ethnoarchaeological case, and/or overestimated in the archaeological case that is being developed here.

Figure 7.32: Proportion of bone specimens of mature (above) and immature (below) llama (to the left) and vicuña (to the right) individuals.

more favourable to offsprings than to adult animals, for what it reproduces what we should be expecting among herders that select animals from the herd within a strategy that intends to favour, among other things, meat production. This possible interpretation, on the other hand, assumes that the bones deposited inside the house are representative of the animal culling pattern, assumption that, regrettably, we will only be able to confirm once we count with bone assemblages from other types of structural context. Still, the pattern of offspring preference is really strong -though maybe not strong enough for assuming that meat was the only purpose of production. As Figure 7.32 shows, one quarter of llama

The parts of llamas that were preferentially deposited inside the inner domestic space were precisely those whose final processing needed to be done inside such space. Head and long bones appear among the favourite anatomic units that, most likely, were processed through boiling. The preparation of stews and soups could have been the last stage of processing of these bones with 211

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Figure 7.33: Frequencies of llama and vicuña bone specimens per stratigraphic unit.

both rooms. In Figure 7.33, we can see that the frequency peaks of llama bones appear in contexts, such as [19], that are related to pit fillings under the floors of the interior of the houses.

tissues inside them and attached to their walls: endocranial organs, tongue, facial muscles, marrow, and bone fat. The presence of long bones among the most weathered bones, despite they present the highest level of bone density, might well be understood as a result of their long exposition to boiling, during which they might have lost the organic substances that used to give them greater flexibility. Finally, even though it is quite likely that most of these bones were taken out of the interior of the house and thrown away somewhere else, many bones, especially little bones and little fragments of bigger bones, formed part of fillings of pits dug in the floors of

On their side, vicuña bones, besides being 70 per cent of the specifically determined camelid bones, show a completely different pattern. Nine out of every ten vicuña bones correspond to mature animals, generally over 2 years old. Undoubtedly, this is not a herding pattern. But, at the same time, this is not a selective hunting pattern within a strategy of meat obtaining either. Since in their 212

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Figure 7.34: Projectile points found in the excavation of TC1.

vicuñas were hunted, which could have been the reason of this tendency towards the concentration of this activity inside the inner space of the house? Answering this question sends us back to the comparative considerations between appropriation of llama wool, and appropriation of vicuña wool.

majority we are talking about animals that had stopped growing long ago, we cannot state any kind of control in the reproduction of resources if the aim was procuring subsistence goods. Instead, this distribution could correspond to a pattern of selective hunting if the aim was the wool of the animals, whose maximum return is only reached in 2-years old and over animals. In this case, avoiding the dead of vicuña offsprings could have been an intervenient factor in the reproduction of herds and in the maximization of woollen resource. This does not imply stating a conservationist ethic but, simply, that the age pattern of hunted vicuñas could have corresponded to a selective appropriation of individuals oriented to the procurement of wool and the reproduction of such resource (Figure 7.34).

Material functional variables might be enough for explaining the location of vicuña hide shearing actions: protection against winds could have been a reason for placing this activity inside the houses (José Togo, personal communication, October 1998). But whichever were the reasons of the location of the action, the true thing is that it was developed inside a highly socially connoted space. While llamas, as we may assume, were domesticated and each domestic unit held appropriation rights over the live animals, what happened with vicuñas may be assumed different. Actually, even the differences between distribution patterns of skeletal parts and age groups of llamas and vicuñas lead to reaffirm the idea of different attitudes towards these two types of animal.

Once the animals were dead, it could have been the case that the different anatomic units were shared between those that had taken part in the hunting trips or following some other kind of social prescription. Vicuña bones that were preferentially deposited inside the house, besides, were not necessarily the same than llama bones. Even though skulls and long bones might have had the same culinary destiny, their frequency pales in front of the significant abundance of vicuña phalanxes. We have already presented the hypothesis according to which the pattern that vicuña phalanxes show is a result of the fact that vicuña hides were brought inside the house for processing fibres and phalanxes attached to them. If the large proportion of vicuña phalanxes inside the house indicates that it was there where the separation of the fibres from the hides was carried once the hides with wool had already been transported from the place where

The resources one can get out of a dead vicuña are plenty and diverse; if one of those resources was oriented to long-distance interchange and not to consumption or local reciprocitarian interchange, it is probable that the social unit of the long-distance interchange corresponded to the social unit of appropriation of the resource that was going to be interchanged. The ideas regarding the wild status of the vicuña imply that no one could claim rights over the live animals and that access to meat or any other final vicuña product had to be regulated by something different than property rights. But wool might have probably 213

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA meant a step ahead towards the modification of both social relationships and attitudes towards vicuñas. Vicuña wool was, on one hand, an interchange good that had to be socially appropriated in order to allow such interchange actions. On the other hand, vicuña wool came from a resource that was not socially but materially appropriated through hunting. Differently from llama wool, which could be obtained from an already socially appropriated object, vicuña wool, if what was intended with it was to carry some kind of long-distance interchange and not sharing it between relatives and neighbours, had to become object of social appropriation only once the animal was dead. In this sense, it is most likely that the symbolic action of social appropriation of vicuña wool in hands of the domestic unit coincided with the technical process of its procurement, that is, with the shearing of vicuña hides. The circumscription of this activity inside the inner domestic space, that is, inside the space from which the other domestic units could be materially and visually excluded, could have provided, even though other functional reasons coincided in such spatial context too, the scenario for the economic and symbolic practice of appropriation of vicuña wool oriented to long-distance interchange. Other earlier stages in the chain operatoire of the processing of vicuñas (killing, hide-extraction, butchering), as well as other later stages (preparation of the hide for example), could have been carried outside the domestic space or, maybe, their location did not matter at all. Hide shearing, on the contrary, could have tended to remain fixed within the demarcated boundaries of the house. If that was actually the case, what becomes interesting is that the discarding of vicuña bones shows itself oriented to contexts that are different to those of llama bones. The peaks where vicuña frequencies separate themselves more from llama frequencies are those found in contexts that, as [3], [24], [18], and [5], correspond to walls and wall falls (Figure 7.33). On the other hand, the contexts in which the representations of both taxa are more alike between them correspond, mainly, to pit fillings under occupation floors. In Chapter 5 we have described the pattern of andesite finds related to walls and we have interpreted it as a gradual addition of refuses of spade blade fragments inside the interstices left by the boulders of the walls. Quite likely, these instruments were associated to their contexts of use in irrigation canals and agricultural fields. Furthermore, they were, at one time, both means of production and instruments of production of relations of production: functionally independent canals and enclosed fields. This suggests the metaphoric nature of the ‘indoors’ context of deposition of vicuña bones. The favourite place and procedure for discarding the instruments used for the material construction of the domestic units as production units35 were the same than the ones preferred for vicuña bones, an animal of generalized access by definition. Maybe, this metaphor, as any other metaphor, is not only a comparison between terms; perhaps, it is the forced introduction of a plus of 35

significance that could have well referred to the restricted appropriation of a resource of generalized access. But walls as preferential contexts of deposition of fragments of andesite spade blades and vicuña bones, especially probably articulated feet with hide, do not only represent an important feature of domestic architecture as support of an accumulation or sedimentation of subproducts of practices of domestic appropriation of nature. As Paice (1991) points out,36 vertical strata cannot be stratigraphically standardized to other strata. The fact that horizontal strata are deposited inside a room makes these ones stratigraphically later to the walls of such room.37 But this does not necessarily imply, instead, that walls do not have, at their time, a direct and significant stratigraphic relationship with subsequent horizontal strata. That is to say, vertical strata can have a direct stratigraphic relationship with -and therefore serve as deposition basin for- several successive horizontal strata. Walls continue to serve as such after the accumulation and extraction of many stratigraphic units. This implies, in the particular case of TC1, a dangerous theoretical consequence: if vertical strata are not only deposition basins for strata inside the rooms but also actual containers of cultural inclusions,38 they should not extend the stratigraphic position of their construction to interstitial inclusions. In TC1, walls were built with double-lined stone-works and filling of mud.39 In such mud, simultaneously to the construction of the walls, numerous cultural elements were included. Then, once these rooms were inhabited, other elements -among them the named andesite and bone items- were placed between the stones that formed each row of stone-work. These inclusions, which we could call interstitial, can be dated to any of the moments of the long period during which diverse occupations inhabited the rooms, or even all throughout it or part of it. That is why they are different from the other inclusions, which we could call structural, that necessarily go back to the moment of construction of the architecture. Thus, it could well be the case that the pattern of deposition of vicuña bones inside the interstices of the walls was actually part of the colonial phenomenon of amplification of the demand of vicuña hides, wool, and textiles that occurred in association to the blossoming of the regional market centred in Potosí (Tandeter 1992, Tandeter and Wachtel 1984) and the international market of Cobija’s smuggling (Bittmann 1979, 1984; Larraín Barros 1979). In that case, vicuña wool would not have been a good that the oasis produced locally for its collocation within the circum-Puna space; hence, the hypothetical model of the oasis as landscape in articulation would loose some of its support. It does not 36 In his critical redefinition of Harris’ stratigraphic methodology, for which he brings about a case of permanent architecture in Egypt. 37 Up to here, agreeing with Edward Harris. 38 As we have shown it is the case of fragments of andesite spade blades and vicuña bones. 39 See Chapter 5, this volume.

If not at economic level, at lest at a visual one.

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Figure 7.35: Settlement TC41 by one of the springs of Tebenquiche Chico, approximately at 4,100 m asl. Structural group TC41 is where the arrow indicates.

seem possible to stratigraphically date interstitial inclusions, and direct datings on materials interstitially included in vertical strata have not been carried yet. However, we still have the possibility of discarding the hypothesis according to which the emphasis on vicuña hunting was exclusively a post-contact phenomenon. Contexts [24] and [18], with a significant proportion of vicuña bones, have been interpreted as wall falls. These stratigraphic units belonged to room A2, which, differently from room A1, was not reoccupied after the twelfth or thirteenth centuries A.D. and, without any doubt, during Spanish colonial period.40 A1’s wall fall context [3], despite A1 was reoccupied during early colonial period after 400 years of abandonment and A2, abandoned in the eleventh or twelfth centuries, was never reoccupied again, presents basically the same pattern of bone part frequencies than contexts [18] and [24]. The contiguity of both rooms might have caused that some elements from room A1 were thrown away or deposited in room A2 despite it was not occupied during colonial period, but it seems quite unlikely, nonetheless, that the therefore resulting pattern of finds in A2 imitated the one in occupied room A1. Thus, even though we cannot affirm the beginning of pattern of interstitial deposition yet, we do count on stratigraphic evidence in favour of its existence during period 1 of occupation.

40

TC41: A Hunting Stand Currently, it is possible to find vicuñas in different topographies within the area of Antofalla sierra: in the beach of the salt lake, in the fields that come down from the valleys, in the steep slopes of suni stripe, and in the tall grass steppe of puna stripe. Nonetheless, not all these habitats lead to the same quality of vicuña wool. It is groups of vicuñas that have settled their territories in the highest areas, between the tall grass steppe and the water springs, the ones that, according to the wisdom of local inhabitants, develop the best quality wool. With the purpose of searching for evidences of hunting practices, we have surveyed the origins of the western affluent of Tebenquiche Chico. These are two springs that flow -one of them superficially- through two little basins that come together so to form a valley that incorporates itself to the water course that continues up to the area of greater occupation density41 (Figure 7.35). Both springs form something like a horseshoe, which leaves, thus, a hill in the middle. On the hill, to the southwest of the spring, there is a little group of archaeological structures we have called TC41. TC41 is formed by two little irregular structures with stone walls and entry openings towards the east (Figure 7.36). Settlement TC41 seems optimal for watching the movements of vicuña groups (Figure 7.35). In TC41’s surface, we have collected evidences of its utilization as 41

See Chapter 5, this volume.

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Described in Chapter 5, this volume.

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Figure 7.36: TC41’s architectonic structures.

Figure 7.37: Rocky shelter TC42, approximately at 4,200 m asl.

hunting outpost such as stone projectile points and bullet shells. Inside the rooms, we have found surface pottery shreds that, in a 90 per cent, could be assigned to some ware of TC1. The most frequent wares in TC41’s group42 are -38- and -33-. Other wares that are also present are -4, -36-, -20-, and Grey Fine-Incised Ciénaga/Grey Incised Aguada. All these wares, even though they are not diagnostic of any Chrono-stratigraphic Event of TC1, can be considered diagnostic of period 1 of occupation of the oasis.

Around the rooms, we have also recovered wares -38-, 4-, -36-, and -33-. Wares -2-, -8-, -29-, and -15- have been collected there too. All these wares are diagnostic of period 1 of occupation of the oasis, and the last one, -15-, is diagnostic of TC1’s Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9. We have also found ware -37-. A third group was collected from the outer periphery of TC41. It also included the already mentioned wares -38and -8-. Both, together with also present ware -24-, are diagnostic of period 1 of occupation of the oasis. We have also found -14- in this group. In short, even though the wares that can diagnose specific Chrono-stratigraphic Events that might stimulate some delimited chronologic

42 That even though it was not selectively collected, it is neither complete.

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Figure 7.38: TC43’s structural groups, probably shelters or hunting stands.

Some 200 m above TC41, we have found a little rocky shelter formed by blocks detached from the outcrops of the summit of Tebenquiche Chico or Antofallita mountain (Figure 7.37). Inside this shelter, which we have called TC42, we found big remains of two pots. One of them is -24-, which was also found in TC41’s periphery, and it is diagnostic of period 1 of occupation of the oasis.

assignation are few, and taking into account that these wares were nor diverse neither abundant, it is possible to affirm that TC41 was occupied during period 1 of occupation of the oasis -although the absence of ware -1-, so frequent in surface groups of other sites of the locality and chronologically diagnostic of period 3 of occupation, is quite noticeable. Thanks to evidence such as projectile shells from fire guns, we can state that TC41 was reoccupied in a period 4 of occupation, of recent chronology.

Between some rocky outcrops located in the pampa between TC41 and the middle parts of the valley, we 217

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA Calchaquí valleys towards the east, the basin of Laguna Blanca and the valleys of Villavil, Hualfín, and Abaucán towards the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean towards the west. Among the places located even further away though still directly or indirectly involved in the interchange, we have mentioned Ambato, the western rainforests or yungas, and the chaco region of Santiago del Estero and Catamarca.43

have also found little structures, probably little shelters equally related to vicuña hunting practices, formed by short walls joining huge blocks. We have identified these structures as TC43 (Figure 7.38). Synthesis of Chapter 7 Throughout this chapter we have presented a heterogeneous series of groups of evidences recovered from the excavation of TC1’s inner domestic space and several surveys carried in the locality. Both coincide in the characterization of the articulation of the domestic group at interregional social scales. As summary of the chapter, we now present a synopsis of such groups of evidences and a discussion on them. In order to do this, we have ordered the discussion in three stages: the social unit that articulates itself at an interregional scale, the reaches of this interregional scale of articulation, and the exchange modes.

Many of these objects are small pots of different shapes and decoration that, in general, show traces of quite a lot of use and repairing attempts evidenced by drillings. Even though these are small or medium pieces, they are generally fragmented and very incomplete. That is to say, only one or two fragments of ceramic pieces were deposited -mainly in the filling of the walls during their construction and in pit fillings during the inhabitation of the house. It would seem that these were objects whose identity went far beyond their mere technical functionality, and that they were quite likely related to the events and/or people that intervened in the interchange from which they were obtained. Their inclusion inside the walls or under the floors of domestic rooms cannot be anything but significant, because, beyond the fact that it represented a conscious action or not, it describes a life history that at the same time is a description of a temporal geography. We do not know much about the contexts of use of these objects, but we do know that they have been highly conserved and, many times, actively maintained. We also know that they had or expressed far-away origins related to interchange journeys and to the people involved in such socially and ritually demarcated events. Finally, whatever the fate of most of the fragments was, one or two of them were included in foundational deposits of the building of the domestic space or in restricted deposits of refuse under the floors together with refuses of food or from diverse productive activities and cleaning of bonfires -this last ones evidenced by the bone and stone materials and ashes that, together with the pottery shreds, formed the filling of pits. Quite likely, the biographies of these objects intercepted the biographies of the individuals that inhabited the family house or the biography of the domestic group as a whole; at least, domestic social scales of production for interchange suggest so.

One of the most important goods that were produced for long-distance interchange was vicuña wool and its derivates, thread and textiles. We have shown the ways in which a domestic appropriation of this wild resource took place; this social practice has been left evidenced by the presence of projectile points in TC1, the find of a hunting outpost (TC41) and associated structures (TC42 and TC43) that turned out to be contemporary to period 1 of occupation of the oasis, the comparison of the deposition patterns of vicuña and llama bones, the deposition of bone, stone, and woollen materials that were related to the practice of vicuña hide shearing that was carried inside the private domestic space, and the interpretation of the taphonomic patterns of the zooarchaeological material. We have suggested that the spatial location of the activity of extraction of the resource of interchange that is, vicuña wool shearing- could have implied a redefinition of its social location. That is to say, we would be talking about an appropriation of a wild resource in hands of part of a particular social unit; to put it differently, we would be talking about a transformation of a resource of shared access -the vicuña- into a resource of restricted access -wool. As wool was a good produced in order to be interchanged, it is logic to assume that the redefinition of the social scale of appropriation of interchange goods must have redefined, at the same time, the social scale of the articulation units. We have said that if interchange goods were appropriated by the domestic unit, then it is precisely that domestic social scale and no other the one that is articulated in the interchange. Domestic units would have been the ones that intervened as such in the interaction.

Domestic groups, or more probably one or some of their members, might have been personally involved in longdistance trading journeys. Placing wool, yarn, or fine vicuña textiles could have implied, just by itself, an economic justification for the journey. But the length of the travelled distances indicates that more than one inhabited place was visited, and, probably, that each one of these places was an opportunity for exchanging locally produced objects or even objects obtained somewhere else. The person that transported objects might have also

The group of foreign objects found in TC1, on the other hand, has allowed mapping the range of the relationships between local domestic units and far-away social units maybe domestic units too. Almost the entire circum-Puna space has been left included in the interaction scale: the oases of San Pedro de Atacama towards the north, the valleys of El Toro and Lerma towards the northeast, the

43 For colonial moments of the occupation, we have also found European objects incorporated through the economic circulation of the colonial Andean space.

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THE WORLD BEYOND THE OASIS been the one that transported the necessary knowledge for their technically, symbolically, and socially effective use. This way, those that mediated the circum-Puna movement of objects were quite likely at the same time those that mediated the movement of ideas. Puna travellers, thus, just by themselves or because they guided specialized individuals, might have played an economically, symbolically, and/or culturally key role in south-central Andean regional articulation. If they used cargo llamas organized into caravans from the beginning or not, is something that does not seem simple to answer yet. However, this is just a technical limitation that does not impede characterizing south-Andean interchange as a personalized and maybe strongly ritualized long-distance movement of objects and associated knowledge of high added value and, therefore, closely related to the people and groups involved in the interchange. Such movement most probably had a seasonal timing; winters might have been preferred because, despite they make the transit across the Puna harder due to higher probabilities of storms and snows, they represent the time of the year that needs less agricultural labour force. Maybe, agriculture was, during other times of the year, a limit to the availability of time for crossing the paths that went, from the oasis, beyond the Puna (Figure 7.3).

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Chapter 8

The Oasis throughout History “... agricola est quem domus demonstrat” (Andrew Sherratt, Climatic Cycles and Behavioural Revolutions) interpretation of the regional past has been the one rewritten in an integrated and coherent way with the new data and theoretical approach offered by this work.

The Oasis Landscape In the last three chapters the attention has been focused on Tebenquiche Chico oasis. In Chapter 5, we have shown in which ways the oasis was built from the definition and addition of domestic cells. In Chapter 6 we have seen how the analysis of material evidences of rituals of the ancestors allows interpreting the construction of a supra-domestic local social scale, and in Chapter 7, the ways of articulation of such domestic units in a regional articulation. A different social scale was taken as axis in each one of these chapters: the domestic unit, the village, and the region. Far away from being three closed and complete descriptions, each analyzed scale has made reference to the other social, time, and spatial scales. It has been precisely in those references to wider social scales that are different from the ones in which practices are materially developed where the mechanisms of social reproduction could be understood. For example, the monumental nature of domestic houses makes reference to a time scale that is much longer than the life of the domestic unit and that goes even beyond the memory of past generations. But, at the same time, these monuments determined, through their functional association to irrigation canals, the extension and location of the restricted access to agricultural lands. Thus, the particular practice of domestic appropriation of productive resources was left materially associated to a supra-domestic scale, that is, to the scale in which ancestors built the oasis. This way, the multiple-scale approach briefly commented in Chapter 3 was not just the tackling of the different scales in which it is possible to include a phenomenon but, instead, the search for the different scales in which a same practice simultaneously operates. Because, for a start, it is through the social, time, and spatial scales -and not simply within the immediate context of the action- that social practices and structures recursively relate to each other.

In Chapter 5, we have shown in which ways domestic compounds were built as little functionally self-sufficient agricultural oases. But the ritual practices related to the building of the house and the life in its interior have also been described. The mechanisms through which building and inhabitation of the house defined -and at the same time naturalized- domestic social units have been respectively interpreted in terms of monument and sediment. This way, the domestic does not only refer to social units or their relationship with nature; domesticity refers to the relationship between social relationships and relationships with nature. The definition of the social units of appropriation of nature and the definition of that nature that was going to be appropriated by them formed part of the same material process that has been referred to as domesticity. This has been more clearly manifested in association to agricultural production, which, at the same time, allowed describing domestic architecture functionally. We have also shown in which ways the same type of analysis can be extended to the appropriation of camelids. The different attitudes towards llamas and vicuñas, analyzed in Chapter 7, allow foreseeing that the oasis might have experienced a transformation of its relationships with vicuñas, at least regarding the domestic appropriation of some of their primary resources.2 In short, the oasis itself was the maximum exponent of the historical maturity of both language and practice of domesticity. The construction and reproduction of oases in suni marshes has been, more literally than metaphorically speaking, the creation of anomalies in the desert. In Chapter 6, the attention has been focused on the ways in which ritual practices related to ancestry and the material contexts in which those were carried allowed fixing lines of social inclusion and exclusion regarding the participation in such rituals of construction of the ancestry. The markings of ritual genre unavoidably related to the construction of local identities, nonetheless, remained as invisible as the burial architecture that included them allowed it. In this sense, we could say that the construction of group identities within the local space

At the same time, each one of these three chapters has centred its respective analysis in one of the three topics of regional archaeology whose critical analysis was presented in Chapter 2, that is, domesticity, identity, and interaction. The critical approach that has inspired this work has not implied an abstract denial1 of the preceding research. In fact, the argument has remained within the main topics of archaeological literature. Even though a critical analysis of the theoretical and methodological assumptions of regional archaeological literature has been carried out too, not just the data but mainly the theoretical

2 Specially, the fact that vicuña wool continued to be a primary resource while llama wool was a secondary one, speaks quite clearly about the different stages in which the relationship with each one of these animals was.

1 Meaning by ‘abstract denial’ the opposite to ‘concrete denial’ or ‘synthesis’.

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THE OASIS THROUGHOUT HISTORY was only visible ‘from within’, that it was only visible for those that took part in such construction, and that it might have remained relatively unnoticed for those that did not form part of the local group of the oasis or the neighbouring oases. It is quite probable, thus, that the core of all the difficulties found by historical-cultural archaeology whenever it intends extending the scheme of cultural classification used for the circum-Puna valleys based on idiosyncrasies of material culture, mainly pottery- to the Puna region lies precisely there.

In this context, it would be inadequate to pretend stating any orientation for the direction of the change such as, for example, diffusionists or materialist interpretative models -according to which social and cultural change happens in more developed centres for, afterwards, extending towards the peripheries- do. The world in which oases became integrated -and the world that we could even say they contributed to create- was a world in which the Altiplano and Atacama areas to the north and west, and the Valliserrana area to the east and south multiplied and extended their ways of interaction. In that world, where the circum-Puna space acquired a coincident relevance with its central position within that cultural geography, agricultural oases appeared and multiplied in suni valleys.5 The early dates of Casa Chávez Montículos 1 (CChM1) in Antofagasta de la Sierra basin, which indicate that its first occupations might have settled there during the last centuries B.C., offer strong evidences in favour of an early integration of the Puna region in the regional formative process through the settlement of village cores of domestic compounds (Olivera 1991c).6 In a way, we could say that Puna oases and circum-Puna populations co-evolved7 throughout the long first millennium of the era, because, even though they kept cultural trajectories of their own, it is only possible to understand the historical process of the south-Andean world at a macro-regional scale and within its mutual interdependencies. Believing that a same world existed from the Argentinean north-western valleys to the circum-Titicaca Altiplano and that such a world worked, at least to some extent, as if it was a system, does not mean that any little change or oscillation in any valley had significant consequences in other parts of the world. Besides, it would be naively optimistic to pretend that the progress of south-Andean archaeological knowledge can support detailed chronological comparisons at an interregional scale. Therefore, a healthy choice would be preferring degrees of detail defined by the quality and quantity of the currently available data. To that extent, it is logic to assume, and archaeology of different areas says so (González 1998; Kolata 1993; Nielsen 1996;

Regional interaction has been, on its side, the focus of Chapter 7. We have shown that vicuña wool and/or its manufactured by-products could have been goods from which the groups of the oasis could have become able to articulate themselves in the regional economic space. At the same time, it has also been suggested that intermediation itself, whose basic technology was precisely the oasis, could have been a service closely related to the development of such circum-Puna regional space. To that extent, the coincidence between the history of the oasis and the histories of greater expansions across the south and south-central Andean spaces is fundamentally significant. The chronology of Tebenquiche Chico oasis -what has been defined as period 1 of occupation to be more accurate- coincides with the chronologies of regional integration in the Valliserrana, Atacama, and Altiplano areas (González 1998; Kolata 1993; Núñez 1992; Pérez Gollán 1986). On its side, Tiwanaku chronology has been considered coincident with records of a period of climatic prosperity that ended with strong and really long droughts, so cause/consequence relationships between climatic prosperity/deterioration, agricultural development/falloff, and Tiwanaku expansion/dissolution have been respectively proposed (Albarracín-Jordán 1996; Bermann 1997; McAndrews et al. 1997; Shimada et al. 1991). Even though the effects of the climatic oscillations registered in Quelccaya southwards are not known, it is expectable that, in a systemically integrated world, significant productive variations in Altiplano centres had, though indirectly, some effect on the Atacama area (Neves and Costa 19983) and, through Puna oases, on the circum-Puna region as a whole (González 1998; Nielsen 1996; Yacobaccio 1996).4 Following the previous description of the ways of interaction characterized by the establishment of social networks through the circulation of highly appreciated goods and services, it is precisely in the social and symbolic connotations of such goods and services where, thus, we should find the main systemic echoes of the major social, political, and/or economic changes in particular sectors of the macro-regional space.

5 To that extent, this work opposes to the belief in a preponderance of Atacama influences (or influences of the western slope of the Andes) that would have been replaced by a preponderance of influences of the mesothermal valleys of the Valliserrana area (or of the eastern slope of the Andes) during, respectively, the first and second components of Casa Cháves Montículos, Antofagasta de la Sierra (Olivera 1991c). It probably is a different position inside a changing network of relationships what can be evidenced by the changes in pottery -probably related to the role of S.Cat.Ans.16 as oasis in circum-Puna interregional interaction. 6 The earliest dates for CChM1 are LP-299 on a bone sample from Level VIII (2120±60 BPcal; Southern hemisphere correction 2150±60 BPcal; calibration with 68.2 per cent of confidence 360 B.C. (0.29) 300 B.C. and 250 B.C. (0.71) 110 B.C.; calibration with 95.4 per cent of confidence 380 B.C. (1.00) 50 B.C.), and B-27200 on a charcoal sample from Level VII (1930±70 BPcal; Southern hemisphere correction 1960±70 BPcal; calibration with 68.2 per cent of confidence 50 B.C. (1.00) 120 A.C.; calibration with 95.4 per cent of confidence 120 B.C. (1.00) 220 A.C.) (Olivera 1991c). 7 The use of this terminology does not imply assuming a biologicism or an organisism for, as it has already been said, it is, above all, a metaphor.

3 Neves and Costa (1998) interpret an anthropometric series in terms of body growth and improvement of the life quality during the period of Tiwanaku influence. 4 See Chapter 4, this same volume.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA point of view, each sub-basin behaved independently from its neighbours from a topographic and agricultural perspective. Besides, and as it has already been discussed in Chapter 6, the construction of wider social units aside from the domestic seems to have been circumscribed to the local village and, for a start, there is no reason for assuming this exceeded the context of each valley. These two discontinuity vectors between oases are stressed if we intend extending the comparison to other big basins such as Antofagasta de la Sierra or Carachipampa, respectively to the east and southeast of Antofalla basin. It is possible to think, then, that each oasis could have had a relatively independent historical trajectory. Nonetheless, it must be taken into account that the contextual conditionings implied by the articulation to the circum-Puna space, which could have been similar for each one of the different Puna oases, must have meant a limit to diversity. We can only metaphorically say that each oasis was a world by itself because, after all, they were all articulated inside a same world.

Núñez 1992; Pérez Gollán 1986), that, throughout the long chronology of circum-Puna integration, more than one expansive or contractive cycle, more than one particular economic and/or demographic growth, and more than one centralized socio-political development would have taken place. Nevertheless, it seems convenient not to pretend going beyond what the quantity and quality of the available data allows to. Having said that not a great scale monolithic time and space but the opposite is what is being intended here, it is necessary to accept the difficulties that regaining the richness and variety of the historical process in greater detail implies. Reconstructing the historical tissue at a macro-regional scale is a future task, but such task will have to undertake the insertion of Puna oases in that tissue if it is to understand the regional historical process. This last statement has assumed something we should clarify now: To what extent can the interpretation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis be considered a model of an oasis landscape that would have extended itself across the entire Puna region? Were there other oases? To what extent were they similar to what we have observed and interpreted in our detailed case? In short, is it possible to talk about an oasis landscape? The reasons for which we chose studying in depth the case of Tebenquiche Chico obey conservation, visibility, and size criterions. Thus, for a start, we need to assume that other cases might present deficient degrees of conservation -as it is the case, for example, of Tebenquiche Grande-, or that maybe they were affected by different processes that could have modified their visibility conditions -as sedimentary accumulation in Antofalla 21 (Af21) or the recent and current occupation of Las Quinoas-, or that perhaps they did not even reach a size that would allow describing, and not only observing, the particularities of the oasis -as it happens, for example, with Antofallita. Besides, once Tebenquiche Chico was chosen as detailed case, most of our efforts were concentrated there; only trips, intensive surveys, surface recollections, and sketches were carried out in other valleys. Hence, it is natural the data to be highly unbalanced both in quantity and quality. Nothing but superficial traces of the probable presence of oases should be expected in any other site. Architectonic and topographic surveys, intensive recollections, and stratigraphic excavations will be able to confirm, deny, or rectify the interpretations made up to here.

Other oases in Antofalla sierra (Figures 4.6 and 4.7) Antofallita. Its most visible archaeological evidences can be found on the western slope of Antofallita valley.8 Two groups of structures were recorded there: one on the upper section of the slope (Antofallita 3 - Ai3), and the other on the lower section of the slope, by the break of slope at the base (Antofallita 2 - Ai2). Ai3 is a reduced group of stone-walled rooms (Figure 8.1). Ai2, on its side, looks like a group of agricultural structures that is quite deteriorated due to the modern recycling of its stones (Figure 8.2). A selective recollection was carried out in both sites and 179 shreds were obtained; 88 per cent of them (158 shreds) could be classified as one or other ware already defined in TC1 (Haber 2000). The wares present in Antofallita are -1-, -2-, -4-, -5-, -6-, -8-, 10-, -11-, -14-, -15-, -17-, -21-, -23-, -26-, -31-, -32-, -33-, -38-, -39-, -40-, -41-, -44-, -46-, -47- and -49-. Even though this is not a complete or necessarily representative assemblage, and despite we cannot say the same regarding some relevant absences, the presence of some diagnostic wares is chronologically significant. Diagnostic wares of Chrono-stratigraphic Event 1 of period 1 of TC1, such as -10-, Chrono-stratigraphic Event 2 f period 1 of TC1, such as -47-, Chrono-stratigraphic Event 8 f period 1 of TC1, such as -11- and -31-, and Chrono-stratigraphic Event 9 f period 1 of TC1, such as 15-, place the sites of the southern slope of Antofallita valley at least during the earliest and latest moments of period 1 of the Oasis. This is reinforced by the presence of, as it had already been observed at Tebenquiche Chico, a great pottery variety at Antofallita. At the same time, the presence of wares -11- and -41- strongly suggests a reoccupation of the sites during period 3, Early Colonial. This settlement has also produced funerary evidences on

Apart from the methodological and technical circumstances that must be evaluated when comparing a detailed case to the rest of the population, it is also convenient to take into account the theoretical implications the oasis landscape could offer to comparative analysis. By definition, the oasis landscape is discontinuous and, even though there could have been oases more or less close to each other, these could have been functionally and socially inter-independent in relative terms. For example, although every water course that takes its waters to the Antofalla salt lake forms a same endorreic basin if considered from a hydrographical

8 Antofallita valley has been roughly described in Chapter 4. The introduced description is based on observations made during a general survey trip, in November 1996, with Antolín Reales and Hugo Romero.

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Figure 8.1: Architectonic structures Ai3 on the southern slope of Antofallita valley.

Figure 8.2: Settlement Ai2 at the foot of Antofallita’s southern slope. Faint line-ups of stones -probably remains of the structures whose construction stones were quite likely used for the building of the current fence (in the background)- can be seen in the foreground.

a hill at the extreme southeast of the valley that is nowadays locally called ‘Moradito’. There, two open underground burial chambers with disperse ceramic material around them (Ai1) (Figure 8.3) were found. Sites Ai2 and Ai3 do not allow establishing the presence of a village in Antofallita. Ai3 is a site topographically and architectonically comparable to Af59 in Antofalla valley. What it is possible to affirm, instead, is that Antofallita valley was occupied, if not all throughout it, at least during different moments of period 1 of the Oasis. It is possible that sites with a different topographic location

9

allow establishing more complete comparisons between this and other valleys of Antofalla basin.10 Tebenquiche Grande. The sites of Tebenquiche Grande valley are practically destroyed because of the reclamation of the stones of the archaeological structures for the construction of current plots. Five groups were identified.11 On the eastern terrace of the valley, by an 10

It must be taken into account, nonetheless, that no kind of intensive survey that would have allowed stating something about the absence of sites with specific features was carried out at Antofallita. 11 A general recognition trip of Tebenquiche Grande was made in November 1989 with Silvina del Carmen Ahumada de Haber and Antonio Ramos. A short visit was afterwards made in March 1999 with Marcos Quesada.

See “Antofalla” section below, this Chapter.

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Figure 8.3: Underground burial chambers Ai1 on Moradito hill, on the southern extreme of Antofallita valley.

outpost,12 we identified a completely deteriorated group of architectonic structures (Tebenquiche Grande 1 TG1), whose shapes could not be recognized because there were no stones left as originally placed. Some 300 m waters up, on the same terrace, a round structure (Tebenquiche Grande 2 - TG2) and, some 100 m northwards, a plot that seems to include archaeological structures inside it, were identified in 1989.13 Some 200 m northwards from that plot, we identified an ancient canal of about 200 m long (Tebenquiche Grande 3 TG3), next to which a fragment of andesite spade blade was found. Waters down, in the centre of the valley, at the height of the mouth, a group of structures (Tebenquiche Grande 5 - TG5) was found completely unidentifiable due to the extraction of its stones for the building of a current plot. In the nearby areas, there are two open underground burial chambers. An obsidian hafted triangular projectile point and potsherds were recollected around the structures. An underground burial chamber on a hill, similar to Antofallita 1, was identified at the south-western end of the valley. Early Colonial material had been extracted from this chamber (Tebenquiche Grande 4 - TG4). The state of conservation of the sites of Tebenquiche Grande makes their interpretation quite hard. It is possible that some of the groups (TG1, TG2, and TG5) used to correspond to cells similar to those identified in Tebenquiche Chico and that

they even were contemporary between them.14 Nonetheless, it is absolutely clear that no village oasis as the one constructed in Tebenquiche Chico was ever built at Tebenquiche Grande. Antofalla. In Antofalla’s campo, that is, on the fan that opens towards the salt lake from the valley, there are some groups of structures that are worth mentioning.15 To the north of the water course -nowadays dried because the intake of the dam and potable water for the village is waters up- there is a series of architectonic compounds (Antofalla 21 - Af21). Af21 is formed by assemblages of grouped rounded and almost rounded rooms (Figure 8.4). Beside the groups of rooms there are agricultural fields to which irrigation canals arrive. The structures are made of basalt and andesite, mainly with angular boulders. The topographic location has influenced the current condition of the site, which is greatly covered by thin and very thin sediment. On the site’s surface, there are large quantities of stone items, though there also are potsherds. Af21 surface pottery assemblage matches the pottery of period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. At the foot of the southern slope of the valley, there is a second group of compounds of rooms, fields, and canals (Antofalla 22 - Af22) (Figure 8.5). This site is strongly 14

Only the age of TG4 can be estimated -period 3 of occupation (Early Colonial). 15 We have made several trips to Antofalla valley. In December 1997, an intensive survey of the valley waters up the current village was carried out with the participation of Juan Ferreyra, Marcos Gastaldi, Gabi Granizo, and Marcos Quesada. In March 1999, a recognition survey of the sites of Antofalla’s campo was carried with Marcos Gastaldi.

12 Formerly permanently inhabited. Nowadays it is only temporarily inhabited by Cesar Ramos and his family. 13 By March 1999, little was left of the circular structure.

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Figure 8.4: Af21 in Antofalla’s campo. Above, notice the architectonic structures grouped in compounds and, lighter, possible canals and enclosed fields. In the centre and below, western and eastern sights of one of the compounds.

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Figure 8.5: Af22. In the foreground, canal delimited by stones. Beyond, accumulations of construction stones that were obtained through the mining of site Af22.

sedimented too, and, regrettably, it has been greatly dismantled in order to obtain construction materials out of it. Great part of the surface of the fan -‘Antofalla’s campo’- is covered by rectangular and trapezoidal structures delimited by low (0.2 m high) sand-edges apparently connected by non-delimited canals (Figure 8.6).16 This group (Antofalla 2 - Af2) keeps a strong resemblance with the ‘bordo’ and ‘melga’ structures observed between Bajo del Coypar and Antofagasta marsh in Antofagasta de la Sierra basin (Haber 1988) (Figure 8.7). These structures were interpreted in relationship to fodder production (Olivera 1991b; Olivera et al. 1994); it has been suggested that the flooding of fields could have allowed the colonization of marsh vegetation (Haber 1988, 1991a, 1992a). The structures of Antofagasta have been assigned to early (Cigliano and Raffino 1975) and late (Olivera 1991b; Olivera et al. 199417) moments. If the formal and size resemblance

the previous sector” (p. 200), they designate Bajo del Coypar II, also delimited by stone walls. The recollected pottery, it is said, indicates “differences in the composition of the samples of the different sectors” (p. 221), although it is mentioned as Belén, Santa María, and Inka for Bajo del Coypar (without specifying if it is the first or the second sector of Bajo del Coypar I or Bajo del Coypar II) and then, it is said that “generally, Ordinary and Belén types wares predominate, but in the structural groups of the slope [presumably Bajo del Coypar II] there is a significant increase of Santa María and Inka types” (p. 221) though in which sectors of Bajo del Coypar I Ordinary and Belén types predominate is not mentioned. Finally, it is stressed that “there seems to be differences between the samples of the three named groups” (p. 221), but the authors do not specify which ones, particularly in the case of the first sector of Bajo del Coypar I, and they afterwards conclude that “according to the considered records, the pre-Inka occupation of Belén would have basically settled on the alluvial plain” (p. 223) (Olivera et al. 1994). Everything seems to indicate that, at least until we can prove that both of them used to form part of the same functional system, it is not convenient to assimilate both sectors of Bajo del Coypar I. Besides, if the functionality of ‘bordo’ and ‘melga’ structures was extending the fodder potential, which could have been the need that Belén and/or Inka polities could have had for producing fodder exactly at the deserted bottom of a basin whose puna stripes hold huge amounts of natural fodder in marshes and pajonales (tall grass steppes) that are far more tasteful for llamas than the vegetation on the edge of the marsh (Haber 1992a)? Seen from the own common sense, which should not have universal validity either, ‘bordo’ and ‘melga’ structures must have been related to agricultural production of vegetables that, or did not grow in more favourable areas of the valley, or served as food to animals that could not live in areas with natural vegetation. Otherwise, such immobilization of labour force in the preparation of fields cannot be again, for the common sense- explained. The first alternative points out to sustenance agricultural production; the second one, to fodder production for European cattle. It is clear, anyhow, that ‘bordo’ and ‘melga’ structures of Antofagasta (Bajo del Coypar I - sector 1) and Antofalla (Af2) deserve specific study.

16 Such structures are really difficult to visualize. They can be more easily seen in early hours of the morning, from the top of the slope that, from Antofalla village, goes towards Campo Amarillo, Caballo Muerto, and Tolar Grande. The visual perspective and the low-level light allow seeing the bigger structures; at least that was what happened in both opportunities, in November 1990 with Mr. Cantore, Mr. Rodríguez, and Manuel Ramos, and in March 1999, with Irina Beresowzky, Romina Braicovich, Leandro D’Amore, Marcos Gastaldi, Gabriela Granizo, Carina Jofre, Marcos Quesada, and Gervasio Reales. 17 The named authors refer to all agricultural fields as Bajo del Coypar I. ‘Bordo’ and ‘melga’ structures are described as the first sector, and the other structures with different topographic location and stone delimitations, which Olivera (1989) had previously referred to as Bajo del Coypar, are described as the second sector. “Immediately related to

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Figure 8.6: Af2. Lines of enclosed fields across the Antofalla fan. The picture, taken with low-level light, was digitally processed in order to enhance its visibility.

between Af2 and the bordos and melgas of Antofagasta allowed thinking that both structures were contemporary between them, the absence of late occupations in Antofalla could question the late assignation of Antofagasta’s structures. This does not necessarily imply an early assignation for both structures. It is equally probable that they had an even later origin. During the nineteenth century, hundreds of cattle heads were taken from the valleys of Salta and Catamarca to the mines and saltpetre offices of the Atacama desert stopping in the intermediate marshes for being fed before crossing the cordillera. Numerous pack-trains were drove from Tinogasta and Belén with the same destiny (Holmberg 1990). The silver mines of Volcán, whose head and processing offices were in Antofalla, must have needed many animals for carrying the material from the mines to high Old Camp (LM1) and, from there, to the mill in Antofalla (Af1). The system of road sites, shelters, corrals, and stopping places related to nineteenth century mining in Antofalla is commented below. It is probable, then, that Af2 and, quite likely, the analogue structures of Bajo del Coypar in Antofagasta, were alfalfa fields for mule and cattle fodder.18 Anyhow, only a specifically designed study will be able to move beyond the current conjectures. In the northern edge of Antofalla valley, 18 The interpretation of ‘bordo’ and ‘melga’ fields in relationship to nineteenth century circulation of mule and cattle livestock has been suggested by Lorandi (Ana María Lorandi, personal communication, October 1988). European cattle does not bear the heights of puna grasses, so its raising and/or feeding needs natural and/or cultivated suni fodder.

Figure 8.7: Bajo del Coypar I, with sand delimitations, in the alluvial plain of Antofagasta de la Sierra basin.

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Figure 8.8: Af20. Basalt and andesite quarry on the northern edge of Antofalla valley.

there is a great andesite and basalt quarry (Antofalla 20 Af20) (Figure 8.8). The presence of basalt nuclei and refuses and remains of flaked andesite indicate that the quarry was exploited. Specially, the stone wall-boulders and items on the surface of Af21 might come from Af20. Some 200 m waters up from Antofalla valley, a little bit beyond the potable water works and on the left slope of the valley, there is a little settlement on a promontory in the middle of the slope. This (Antofalla 5 - Af5) is formed by a core of two rooms and three patios (Figure 8.9). The stone-work is made of irregular sub-angular boulders; the walls of the rooms are up to 1.2 m high. The boundaries of the patios are formed by a sole row of big blocks. In the patio that is beside the rooms there is a fractured grinding stone. There are great amounts of basalt material in Af5’s surface and little pottery; this last one corresponds to diagnostic wares of period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. Af5 seems to match the concept of domestic compound, but its association to agricultural structures is not equally visible.19 Some 300 m waters up, on the top of the right slope of the valley, there are two arches of the circleshaped structures that form group Antofalla 17 - Af17. Both structures, one of them 3 m long and the other 2 m long and at some 6 m from each other, have stone walls of approximately 0.8 m high and not too cared construction. Basaltic and obsidian material can be found at the surface, and a fractured artefact of bifacial flaking

was found in the second structure. Although Af17 is probably contemporary to period 1 of occupation, the absence of pottery implies that an earlier chronology is more likely. More or less at the same height of the valley where Af17 is but in the valley bottom by the marsh, there is a group of structures on the right slope that, even though the poor conditions of conservation diminish its visibility, is formed by apparently archaeological canals and agricultural fields (Antofalla 6 - Af6) (Figure 8.10). Some 600 m waters up, a little bit after the first narrow on the right slope of the valley, there is a rocky shelter formed on the conglomerate rock basement. Antofalla 15 (Af15) is approximately 4 m wide and 5 m high at its dripline, and it is only 15 m away from the edge of the marsh (Figure 8.11). Inside and outside the shelter, up to 6 m away from it, there is archaeological surface material that includes basalt, obsidian, bone, and pottery. The high density of surface finds (4 artefacts per m² inside the shelter and 7 artefacts per m² outside it) indicates its large use. Pottery indicates that shelter Af15 was occupied in contemporary moments to period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. Some 100 m waters up on the same slope, on a really steep sector, several blocks detached from the upper dorsal of the cliff form a rocky shelter (Antofalla 14 - Af14) of 10 m between both entrances, a maximum width of 3 m, and a maximum height of approximately 4 m (Figure 8.12). A blade fragment of andesite spade blade that could relate the utilization of shelter Af14 to a coincident chronology to period 1 of Tebenquiche Chico oasis was collected at its surface. A little bit more than 100 m waters up, on the

19 And, taking into account the topography and general aspect of the valley, water transportation structures should not be expected to reach Af5 relative height either.

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Figure 8.9: Af5. Structural group in the middle of the left slope of Antofalla valley. Above, location from the marsh. Below, architectonic structures Af5.

Figure 8.10: Af6. Agricultural structures at the foot of the right slope of Antofalla valley.

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Figure 8.11: Af15. Shelter on the right margin of Antofalla valley.

Figure 8.12: Af14. Rocky shelter on the right slope of Antofalla valley.

same right slope of the valley, another rocky shelter (Antofalla 13 - Af13) approximately 3 m wide, 3 m deep, and 4 m high in the drop line, was formed by the accumulation of big blocks detached from the upper dorsal. A fragment of an incised leather piece and mammal vertebrae were collected at its surface; no pottery was found. There is a couple of even smaller rocky shelters (Antofalla 12 - Af12) at the top of the same slope, some 250 m waters up from Af13, and a little bit

before the second narrow (Figure 8.13). The biggest, which is 4 m deep, 4 m wide, and 1 m high in the drop line, though narrower towards its interior, has approximately 0.25 m of sterile sediment in its interior and up to the bedrock.20 Stone and ceramic artefacts were collected at its surface. At the foot of the slope, at the 20 Shovel probes were carried out both inside the rocky shelter and in the drop line with null results.

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Figure 8.13: Af12. Shelter at the top of the right slope of Antofalla valley.

Figure 8.14: Artefact dispersions Af10 and Af11, respectively at the left and right margins of Antofalla river, at the height of the mouth of Quebrada Seca (to the right of the picture).

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA same height where Af12 is, there are dispersed artefacts, mainly basalt and obsidian, of rather rough appearance. This dispersion, Antofalla 11 - Af11 (Figure 8.14), is just in front of another important dispersion, Antofalla 10 Af10 (Figure 8.14), on the fan of Quebrada Seca that flows into Antofalla valley. In Af10, besides the predominant basaltic and obsidian materials, there is a little quantity of highly eroded potsherds. This recollected pottery allows establishing a tentative contemporary chronology to period 1 of Tebenquiche Chico oasis.21

agricultural terraces and underground burial chambers of similar architecture to those of Tebenquiche Chico (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978). The collected pottery was classified as Grey Line-Polished, Grey Incised, Plain Grey, Grey-Black Polished including some shreds with unfired ochre applications, Plain Red Painted, Ordinary Plain Red, Red on Grey, Black on Red, and Ordinary types, and it has been considered comparable to the wares known for certain Formative moments of Antofagasta de la Sierra (Escola et al. 1992-1993: 177-178). Closer to the beach of the salt lake, on the distal edge of Las Quinoas fan, a group of mound-like structures with plenty of archaeological material in surface -including lithic spades and Plain Grey Polished or Incised wares (Escola et al. 1992-1993: 178)- could be observed. These sites of Las Quinoas valley allow estimating occupations in contemporary moments to period 1 of Tebenquiche Chico oasis (see as well the drawing on the last page and the plate on the page before in Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978). The superficial evidences at the margins of the current occupation, which are still visible precisely because they are at the margins, allow characterizing such archaeological occupations as mainly agricultural.

Other suni oases. In Botijuela valley, there are superficial remains of rooms, agricultural fields, and canals that, despite being quite deteriorated, allow a tentative comparison to Tebenquiche Chico oasis.22 The disposition of the structures is formed by “lined-up and echeloned sectors” (Escola et al. 1992-1993: 179 and Sketch 4) that allow inferring they are oriented along water irrigation systems.23 Own observations at Botijuela record a disposition of habitational rooms associated to patios and agricultural fields and canals, which allows establishing comparisons with Tebenquiche Chico and Antofalla 20. The shape of the rooms and the collected potsherds and stone artifacts allow estimating an occupation in Botijuela valley that would have been contemporary to period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. Escola et al. reach a coincident estimation from the formal similarities between lithic spades and projectile points (“with differentiated haft element and incoming wings made of obsidian”, [Escola et al. 19921993: 182]) from Botijuela and Casa Chaves Montículos in Antofagasta de la Sierra (Escola et al. 1992-1993: 182). In short, the archaeological evidences of Botijuela valley, even though they do deserve specific study, allow inferring presence of agricultural occupations in contemporary moments to Tebenquiche Chico oasis. The disposition of houses by agricultural fields and the presence of associated structures of water transportation allow suspecting they might have been domestic compounds. Nevertheless, the size of the site does not seem to be any near the greater development seen at Tebenquiche Chico oasis.

The group of mound-like sites of Casa Chaves Montículos in Antofagasta de la Sierra basin could represent a comparable case further-away in space.25 The site has a chronology that is at least comparable to the first half of period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis and it has been interpreted as a permanent or almost permanent village settlement (Olivera 1991c). Its agricultural orientation, nonetheless, has been nuanced by Olivera in favour of a stronger emphasis on llama raising (1991c). Although evidences of corn and agricultural artefacts were recorded in the excavations, the absence of stone architecture does not allow the visibility that Tebenquiche Chico’s agricultural structures allowed. It is worth noticing, however, that at least one (S.Cat.Ans.16.4) of the two excavated mounds did present remains of the floor of a delimited household (Olivera 1991c). The sites of Mirihuaca (RM1 and RM2) waters up the same basin, on the contrary, seem to present a potentially closer case.26 The pottery collected at both sites and excavated in RM2 seems comparable to period 1 of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. Besides, since fragments of lithics related to agricultural activities were found and stone architecture was identified (Olivera 1991c), we should quite likely expect agricultural and irrigation structures, if they actually existed, to be still visible.

The heavy current use of the land for agriculture and dwelling is a major obstacle for the observation of superficial evidences in Las Quinoas valley.24 We were able to observe, nonetheless, remains of pre-Hispanic 21 A map of surface finds was made in order to define the areas of greater concentration, where two surveys, in which a diminishment of the density of finds till its complete disappearance at 0.5 m depth was noticed, were carried out. 22 A general survey of Botijuela valley was made in 1989 with Silvina del Carmen Ahumada de Haber, Patricia Escola, Atilio Nasti, Jorge Reales, and Catalino Soriano. Leopoldo Morales and Antonio Ramos joined the group once there. 23 “More clearly, we have recorded remains of an irrigation system through canals” (Escola et al. 1992-1993: 179). 24 A general survey of Las Quinoas valley was made in 1989 with Silvina del Carmen Ahumada de Haber, Patricia Escola, Atilio Nasti, Jorge Reales, and Catalino Soriano. Antonio Alancay joined the group once there.

Such seems to be the case of Paicuqui, even further up in the basin of Punilla river. On the eastern side of the river, and some 200 m southwards from the current occupation, 25 The author took part in the excavations in Montículos 1 and 4 made in January 1987 under the supervision of D. E. Olivera. 26 The author visited the sites of Mirihuaca while being part of the research team directed by D. E. Olivera in January 1987.

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THE OASIS THROUGHOUT HISTORY Chico oasis was found at Las Minas valley31 (Haber 1997) -which, currently, is the only valley completely intensively surveyed. Las Minas valley, differently from all the previously mentioned valleys, presents a really steep topography that could have made the levelling of surfaces for cultivation under irrigation extremely difficult (Figure 8.15). Besides, the little caudal of the water course would not have allowed its utilization for irrigating the fields at Campo del Volcán (the fan) because water drains until disappearing a little before the place where the valley mouths into the Campo (Figure 8.15). The absence, methodologically confirmed, of superficial evidences of occupation during period 1 of the Oasis in Las Minas and Campo del Volcán is, opportunely, quite suggestive. Because, even though this is a suni valley, its topographic and hydrological features would not have allowed the settlement of agricultural occupations that, as those of the oases, consist in the addition of domestic social units. Concordantly, the presence of occupations in the other valleys with better physical conditions for agricultural settlement, suggests that agriculture could have been a key element for the settlement and reproduction of such occupations.

the slope becomes noticeably soft. There, habitational structures associated to fields and canals, with stone architecture and surface pottery comparable to that of period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis, could be observed.27 Barrionuevo described a site in El Jote that “is settled on a wide alluvial terrace on the left margin of the river” at 20 m above the river level (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978: 39). The site was described this way: “it is a series of isolated and well-defined archaeological units. Each unit is formed by a nucleus of rounded houses of three to five meters diameter grouped inside a circle of 15 meters diameter” (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978: 39). This description certainly reminds the disposition of domestic compounds. The pottery, described as grey with very thin sillicious inclusions, plain grey with very thin sillicious and sand inclusions, red and brown painted on natural with sand and mica inclusions, coarse smoothed brick-red with sand and mica, and gross coarse brown with sand, seems comparable to that of period 1 of Tebenquiche Chico oasis. Other settlements in the basin of Punilla or Antofagasta river, as well as others in Carachipampa and El Peñón, might present similar settlements.28

Since the quality and quantity of available data on the different suni marshes is variable, we should not expect a detailed profusion of data when comparing the evidence at a regional scale. It is necessary to accept that the discussion of the oasis landscape at a regional scale will include nor the colour neither the richness the contextual data of Tebenquiche Chico at a micro-scale allowed. Thus, the possibility of understanding the mechanisms of daily reproduction of the oasis landscape beyond what could be inferred from the detailed case under study, at a regional scale, is lost. Even taking into account the diversity of the available data, at least one site -Af21 though probably also Af22- with similar features to those found in Tebenquiche Chico was identified. In Af21, the disposition of the settlement is organized in domestic compounds, each one of which is formed by likely habitational rooms,32 some patios and/or fields, and canals that reach them from the river. Something similar seems to be the case at least in part of Botijuela’s archaeological occupation area. In Tebenquiche Grande, there are fragmentary evidences of some probable domestic cells but none of them is clear enough. In Las Quinoas, though agricultural structures could be identified, their association to households could not be established, and, if it had actually existed, it would have probably been definitely altered by the current occupation. The description of the site of El Jote reminds

Summing up, archaeological evidences that can be tentatively considered contemporary to period 1 of occupation of Tebenquiche Chico oasis have been found at Antofallita, Tebenquiche Grande, Antofalla, Botijuela, Las Quinoas, Paicuqui, Mirihuaca, Antofagasta de la Sierra, and El Jote. All these sites can be characterized as suni marshes. Evidences of agricultural structures and/or artefacts related to agricultural activity have been found in all of them. The agricultural orientation of these oases29 finds additional support in the existence of a negative case: Las Minas.30 No site that could be considered contemporary to period 1 of Tebenquiche

27 Several quick surveys have been made in Paicuqui during the last ten years while passing through in the way to Antofalla. 28 Olivera (1989) had already considered the four biggest Puna endorreic basins -Antofalla, Antofagasta, Hombre Muerto, and Laguna Blanca- as framework of analysis. The first two have already been mentioned. Hombre Muerto basin, since its bottom is almost at 4,000 m asl, does not allow agricultural settlement, for what we should not expect oasis presence there. Incahuasi and Los Patos marshes were surveyed in May 1999; a group of archaeological evidences was found there, but none of them was comparable to the oasis landscape. Instead, Laguna Blanca basin does present the necessary conditions for having allowed the development of a significantly bigger settlement with an appreciably different continuity of occupation from that of the Puna oases described in this work (Albeck and Scattolin 1984). This, plus the fact of being closer to mesothermal valleys than to the Altiplano desert, make Laguna Blanca an intermediate step between valleys and Puna oases and, therefore, deserving of specific consideration. 29 With the probable exception of Antofagasta de la Sierra basin, where the agricultural orientation has not been definitely accepted for Formative yet (Olivera 1991c). 30 Judging by the description in Barrionuevo’s journal (Menecier and Barrionuevo 1978), Orohuasi could be a second negative case. Nonetheless, it is necessary to underline that the surveys made during the 1970’s were only general, and, in front of the absence of intensive surveys, it is not wise to state anything about the absence of superficial evidences.

31 Furthermore, although we did find evidences of occupations assigned to Archaic, Bolivian (second and third quarters of nineteenth century), and Recent (twentieth century) period and we also found significant quantities of isolated artefacts, we did not find any ceramic fragment across the whole Las Minas valley, or at Filo del Volcán or Campo del Volcán. 32 The strong sedimentation that affects Af21 does not allow considering the height of the walls over the basis of superficial observations as it could be done in Tebenquiche Chico.

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Figure 8.15: Landscape of Las Minas valley (above) and Campo del Volcán (below).

of the disposition organized in domestic compounds of Tebenquiche Chico. Hence, in Antofalla, and probably also in Tebenquiche Grande, Botijuela, Las Quinoas, Paicuqui, Mirihuaca, and El Jote, there are remains of agricultural occupations structures like Tebenquiche Chico’s domestic cells but in different topographies and scales.

households (Ai3) might have actually corresponded to the fields in the valley bottom (Ai2). A similar disposition can be interpreted for two sites at Antofalla valley, where a group of upslope households (Af5) could be associated to agricultural structures in the valley bottom (Af6) too. Even though these cases in Antofallita and Antofalla do not find any analogue case in Tebenquiche Chico, the pottery collected in their surfaces allows establishing contemporaneousness between them and period 1 of the Oasis. They probably represented a different contemporary way of occupation, but we should stress the fact that they maintain a domestic scale of aggregation,

Representing an even more different way of settlement organization, Ai2 and Ai3 could have corresponded to a different though contemporary disposition of domestic units adapted to a different topography. The upslope 234

THE OASIS THROUGHOUT HISTORY and associations, though not that immediate, to agricultural and irrigation structures.

nonetheless, the main level of social practices and selfrepresentations within the domestic scale. The favourable macro-regional context for the creation of oases answers to the process of regional integration of the valleys of the Valliserrana, Atacama, and Altiplano areas. That is to say, at a wide geographical scale, the creation of oases was part of the same process through which the circumPuna space as articulated region was created between the last centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D. (Tarragó 1984). Towards half of the first millennium of the era, an economic and demographic expansion phenomenon took place in the Altiplano, Atacama, and Valliserrana areas (González 1998); their interrelation must have catalyzed the importance of Puna oases. This phenomenon seems to have continued until the first centuries of the second millennium.

Finally, only Af21 allows considering the existence of an agglomeration of domestic cells that would have been big enough for constituting a village.33 The cases of Antofalla waters up the valley, Antofallita, and Tebenquiche Grande, even when they could be considered occupations of domestic cells, did not go anywhere beyond being occupations of one, two, or three small units.34 Hence, the presence of agricultural occupations in the different valleys of Antofalla sierra did not imply the creation of a village in each one of them. In those places where agriculture was impossible or too expensive -such as Las Minas,35- there were no occupations during period 1 of the Oasis. But in those other places where agriculture was possible and existed, the occupation was, or just formed by a couple of domestic units -as it is the case of Antofallita and Tebenquiche Grande-, or able to develop into a bigger and quite more long-lasting occupation that allowed the transformation of the landscape in a true oasis -as it would be the case of Tebenquiche Chico and Antofalla.

The Prehistory of the Oasis The origin of oases should probably be looked for in the junction of a long local tradition of high mobility (Aschero 1994; Núñez 1992; Pintar 1996) and camelid appropriation (Yacobaccio et al. 1994) with the agricultural experimentation in villages settled in valley headings such as, among others, Campo Colorado, Jaime, and Salvatierra Las Pailas (Tarragó 1980, 1994), Las Cuevas, Cerro El Dique, and Potrero Grande (Cigliano et al. 1976; Raffino 1977), and Ranchillos 2, Saujil 1, Saujil 2, Costa de Reyes, Cuesta de Zapata, and Palo Blanco (Sempé de Gómez Llanes 1977a, 1977b), as well as in Atacama oases such as Tulor 1 (Llagostera et al. 1984), and Puna oases such as Torre (Fernández Distel 1998), in a historical context of increasing integration of the populations of the Valliserrana area between them, and of these with the Atacama and Altiplano areas (González 1998; Pérez Gollán 19861991).

In short, Tebenquiche Chico can be considered as a case of oasis within a landscape form that reached an analogue development in other suni marshes with agricultural potential. The form of agricultural occupation structured by domestic cells could have been a common pattern to other oases, and even those valleys where the occupation scale has been much smaller seem to have defined themselves around domestic cores. The qualitative and quantitative diversity of the available data makes the comparison between the scales and structural features of each settlement quite hard, so it is not convenient, at least for the time being, to make any other detailed comparisons between the case studied in depth and the rest of the valleys. Nevertheless, the panorama offered by the currently available data seems to suggest that Tebenquiche Chico would not have been the exception to the rule but an agricultural oasis within a predominant landscape, a case among many others that, on the other hand, would have reached a relatively significant development and, therefore, conserved a quite noticeable visibility.

Perhaps an indicator of such cultural process can be found in the construction of households with permanent architecture. In this sense, and agreeing with Sherratt’s suggestion briefly anticipated in the epigraph of this chapter, it is in the houses where the history of domesticity in the region might be followed (Sherratt 1997). To that extent, the presence of Archaic settlements with permanent architecture in relatively nearby though lower sites such as Tulán 52, or Old Formative such as Tulán 54 and Tilocalar (Núñez 1992, 1994), following a pattern that seems to have had a much wider geographical scope (Malpass and Stothert 1992) is quite remarkable. The Puna region has certainly not been that bountiful in what concerns this kind of finds. Nonetheless, it was possible to record a long sequence of occupation related to exploitation of local microenvironments, long-distance interaction, and appropriation of camelid resources in Quebrada Seca 3, Las Pitas, Antofagasta de la Sierra (Aschero 1994; Aschero, Elkin, and Pintar 1991; Aschero et al. 1993-1994). The definition of social units closely related to the appropriation of local resources -including flock control- has formed part of the interpretations of the

For the moment, little can be said about the process through which oases were originated beyond what has been already suggested by the theoretical model presented in here. Oases would have been formed by the agricultural settlement of domestic units. In those oases where several of these domestic units grouped, they could have allowed actual peasant villages though keeping, 33 We exclude the sites of Casa Cháves, which might have reached village dimensions but does not present a clear enough agricultural orientation (Olivera 1991c), and Mirihuaca, Paicuqui, and El Jote, whose dimensions and aggregation scales are not known. 34 The cases of Botijuela and Las Quinoas cannot be evaluated regarding settlement scale yet. 35 And, probably, Orohuasi.

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Figure 8.16: LM14 in Vega Las Minas (above). Below, detail of the architectonic structures.

long process of interactions between human populations and environment during the Archaic period.

from the water course, there are two structural groups and a dispersion of artefacts called Vega Las Minas (LM14). The largest structural group is formed by three stonewalled sub-circular structures of 2 m diameter each that are lined-up following the water course, and an oval structure, of 2 m shortest diameter and 3 m longest diameter, whose walls maintain a height of 0.8 m to 1 m. Some 20 m westwards, there is the second structural group, which is formed by two round rooms of 2 m diameter each, with stone walls that maintain, respectively, a height of 0.2 m and 0.4 m (Figure 8.16). Around the structural groups, there are stone, metal, and rubber artefacts, and a considerable amount of animal bones. Nine basalt flakes, two basalt distal side scrapers, one basalt flake with complementary traces, two obsidian flakes, one probable obsidian end-scraper, three andesite flakes, two obsidian (volcanic glass) flakes, one fragment of a glass bottle’s base, one fragment of tyre cut with a sharp instrument, one camelid hemi-mandible, one

Though only subsequent analyses will be able to state it with certainty, it is quite likely that two groups of finds found in the Antofalla area contribute to this issue. One of these groups is formed by a site in Las Minas valley and five sites at Campo del Volcán, in the sub-basin of El Volcán, western affluent of the Antofalla salt lake.36 At the bottom of Las Minas valley, some 30 m southwards 36 A first general recognition trip to Las Minas valley was made in December 1996, with Rubén Darío Iturriza and Juan Ferreyra, joined by personnel of the Compañia Minera Antofalla S.A. In December 1997, the National University of Catamarca carried out an intensive survey of Filo del Volcán, Las Minas valley, and Campo del Volcán, by request of the Compañia Minera Antofalla S.A. and within the framework of the study of the archaeological impact of the phase of exploration of the Reserva Minera Antofalla Este (Haber 1997). The team was formed by the author, and Juan Ferreyra and Marcos Gastaldi.

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Figure 8.17: CV2. Above, sight of area of scatter of artefacts CV2. Below, some obsidian and basalt artefacts, including a fragment of an obsidian bifacial lanceolate tool (to the left of the picture, below and to the right), collected at CV2.

group that would be evidenced by the height of its walls. Apparently, LM14, since it is closely associated to paths and shelters, would have also been related to the transportation and provisioning road system of the mines of El Volcán during mid-nineteenth century. But it is equally probable, at least judging by the superficial evidences, that an earlier occupation actually inaugurated the settlement in such site. The presence of flaked lithics and the absence of pottery could indicate an Archaic occupation.

fragment of camelid radius-ulna, one shell of REM44WCF bullet, half an iron horseshoe, and one squashed fragment of tin were collected in the area. Twenty-one basalt flakes, three obsidian flakes, and eight vicuña bone fragments -one of them mandible and another one radius-ulna- were collected in the oval room (Figure 8.16). LM14 is located in a little stretch of Las Minas valley that opens, waters up the first narrow, forming a little marsh at 3,650 m asl. Despite the limited extension of this marsh, it has been repeatedly chosen for settling occupations all throughout the different occupation episodes of Las Minas because it is almost the only marsh extension all along Las Minas valley, and because it is quite protected from the winds (Figure 8.16). The site presents clear evidences of recent reoccupation, including a possible reconstruction of the first structural

In the north-western corner of Campo del Volcán, at 3,510 m asl, there is a superficial dispersion of artefacts (Campo del Volcán 2 - CV2) of 70 m east-west direction, and 50 m north-south direction (Figure 8.17). There are some remains of structures too, but they do not present 237

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Figure 8.18: CV3. Above, probable bases of structures. Below, line-up of stones, probably a canal.

collected in the surface. Also by the southern slope of Campo del Volcán, at 3,440 m asl, there is a sub-circular structure of 2 m to 2.5 m diameter with stone walls that are less than 0.3 m height and that are joined without any mortar. This structure, Campo del Volcán 5 (CV5), has an entrance towards the southeast (Figure 8.19). Some basalt artefacts were found around the structure; inside it, a black basalt scraper and a grey-black basalt flake were found. A little bit lower, at 3,400 m asl and on the left margin of the water course, there is a small stone moundlike structure of 0.6 m height and 1.5 m to 2 m diameter (Campo del Volcán 6 - CV6) (Figure 8.20). It is only associated to few dispersed stone artefacts. At the same height though by the southern slope of Campo del Volcán, there is a sub-circular structure of 2.5 to 3 m

any discernible organization. The density of artefacts per m² increases towards the northwest -reaching 10 artefacts per m²- and diminishes towards the south and east -0.3 artefacts per m². All the artefacts are made of basalt and different qualities of obsidian. Apart from great quantities of debitages, we have also found many nuclei and flaked artefacts. Among these last ones, we found side scrapers, knives, end-scrapers, and some artefacts of lanceolate shape and bifacial flaking (Figure 8.17). To the east of CV2 and crossing the water course, there is group Campo del Volcán 3 (CV3), which is formed by three almost rectangular structures and one round structure grouped between them and delimited by what might have been a canal through the west (Figure 8.18). The stone walls are not more than 0.2 m height. Some basalt flakes were 238

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Figure 8.19: CV5. Isolated round structure by the foot of the southern slope of Campo del Volcán.

Figure 8.20: CV6. Small stone mound-like structure in Campo del Volcán.

diameter (Campo del Volcán 7 - CV7) (Figure 8.21). Basalt artefacts, including a knife, and obsidian artefacts, including a big obsidian nodular flake, were found around the structure (Figure 8.21). Even though only future detailed analyses will allow interpreting the actual meaning of the sites of Vega Las Minas and Campo del

Volcán, it is interesting to notice that all of them are gathered, really close to each other, in the lower stretch of the valley and in the big fan of El Volcán. At the same time, they also share the utilization of the same raw materials and, broadly speaking, a same family likeness in flaking technology. In LM14, CV5, and CV7, there is 239

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Figure 8.21: CV7. Above, architectonic structure at the foot of the southern slope of Campo del Volcán. Below, nodular obsidian flake found inside it.

stone architecture that might have corresponded to houses or, at least, temporary shelters.

outcrop that works as wind blind through the northwest. The mound, Archibarca 1 (Ab1), is almost shaped as a semicircle, of some 80 m diameter, and higher to the north than to the south (Figure 8.22). Two double-lined walls of vertically disposed slabs that join forming a right angle can be observed in the southern extreme of Ab1 (Figure 8.22). Towards the northern extreme, the visibility is considerably diminished by the superposition of an outpost and a big corral currently in use. Large amounts of archaeological material can be found in the surface; artefacts made of basalt, obsidian, quartz, opal, and other raw materials not known in any of the occupations of Tebenquiche Chico predominate. Bifacial technology can be found in several lanceolate points, and in some points with wide haft element (Figure 8.22). Just

A second group of sites that could contribute to this discussion is located in the margins of Archibarca marsh, at 4,100 m asl. Such marsh is by the homonym lagoon, which is reservoir of sulphurous waters, terminal of the basin, and some 40 km westwards from Antofalla.37 In the northern edge of the marsh, near the only freshwater pouring, there is a large mound delimited by an andesite 37 A general recognition trip to Archibarca marsh and Archibarca lagoon was made in March 1999, with Irina Bereszowzky, Romina Braicovich, Leandro D’Amore, Marcos Gastaldi, Gabriela Granizo, Carina Jofré, Marcos Quesada, and Gervasio Reales.

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Figure 8.22: Ab1. Above, Archibarca marsh and settlement Ab1 by the rocky outcrop in the centre of the picture. In the middle, Ab1 mound and modern corral built on it. Below, artefacts from Ab1; notice the stone tools made of basalt, obsidian, opal, and quartz; lanceolate and almost lanceolate shapes of bifacial technology abound; below and to the right, two ceramic handles collected in the corral.

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Figure 8.23: Ab4. Structures (to the left) and basalt nodule (above).

by its southern shore. They both seem to have taken advantage, as Ab1, of the rocky outcrops as wind blinds. In Ab3, one of the walls was built with the rock of the outcrop itself, with rough lithic material between the wall and the marsh. In Ab2, we could observe inner structures delimited by stone walls, and large amounts of lithic material, of similar morphology to that collected in Ab1, between the structures and the marsh (Figure 8.25). Again, the group of sites of Archibarca could potentially bring about new evidences regarding the Archaic occupation of the area, but, regrettably, that is something only future researches will be able to tell us.

a few and really eroded pot shreds were found both inside and nearby the corral. Almost in front of Ab1, on the southern shore of the marsh, there is Archibarca 4 (Ab4). This is a little hill with two small barricades (Figure 8.23). Great quantities of basalt and obsidian, including big basaltic nodules with flake scars and big flakes around them, were found nearby Ab4 (Figure 8.23). On the same southern shore of the marsh but more towards the west, heading to the lagoon, there are two natural promontories with rocky outcrops at their tops. One of them, Archibarca 3 - Ab3 (Figure 8.24), is inside the marsh, and the other, Archibarca 2 - Ab2 (Figure 8.25), is 242

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Figure 8.24: Ab3. Shelter structure built on an andesite outcrop.

Figure 8.25: Ab2. Structure on an andesite outcrop by Archibarca marsh. The outcrop on which Ab3 was built can be seen in the centre and to the right of the picture.

Nevertheless, the four identified sites seem to share a similar location and, three of them -Ab1, Ab2, and Ab3-, a same topographic disposition that would have taken advantage of the andesite outcrops for protection against winds. Archibarca, given its height and hydrological conditions, is an area where there are no doubts that agriculture did not play any role in human sustenance at all. The use of local raw materials such as basalt in one hand, and the presence of other non-local raw materials such as obsidian, different types of opal,38 etc on the

other, could be indicating the insertion of this group of sites in wider mobility circuits that might have included lower stretches of the regional geography. Anyhow, the presence of stone structures indicating probable permanent architecture in these sites is potentially significant regarding the study of the regional processes of occupation of the space, sedentism, and domesticity construction.

38 Although this argument is still valid for translucent varieties of obsidian, studies made after this work was finished in 1999 have

allowed localizing local sources of opal and an opaque grey variety of obsidian.

243

DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA The groups of El Volcán and Archibarca, respectively on the lowest and highest extremes of the local geography, suggest the possibility of future progresses in what concerns the knowledge of the historical process previous to the creation of the oasis landscape. The sites of Vega Las Minas and Campo del Volcán are located on a suni valley of lower hydrological and topographic conditions than those that any kind of irrigation agriculture needs. Archibarca marsh, on its side, presents heights that exceed the maximum height agriculture can bear.39 The sites of Las Minas, Campo del Volcán, and Archibarca, nonetheless, still wait for more intensive analyses40, so it is not possible, at least for the time being, to go any further in the interpretation of the history of human occupation in Antofalla. Differently from later oases, archaic occupations seem to have not been focussed around agriculture; the intensive appropriation of mineral and animal resources seems to have been quite instrumental in the establishment of long-lasting bonds with specific sites in the landscape. The probable presence of permanent architecture could have been related to those specific sites. Nonetheless, everything seems to indicate that the demarcation of practices and domesticity representations, and the long tradition of long-distance interaction would have played some role in the definition of social units (Aschero 1994). Now we only need to mention what happened with oases after the period of the Oasis.

in the Puna specifically oriented to the extraction of resources from that area (Raffino and Cigliano 1973). Such model introduced Murra’s argument regarding the ethnical-political control of vertical complementarity (Murra 1975) in the specific context of the Puna region. Not intending to introduce the entire literature that has dealt, in one way or another, with vertical control model within the scope of Andean political economy43, it is, in the particular case of the circum-Puna area, a quite useful reference to the changes that would have been operated between societies and their resources during the Late Agro-Pottery period. Even though it is expectable that the process of status differentiation carried out by the elites increased the demand of certain goods and/or services that might have been exotic or short in the valleys, this is not about circum-Puna societies needing Puna goods that they did not use to demand before (Earle 1987; specifically regarding textiles, Lechtman 1993). In any case, it is precisely the enforcement of political strategies of appropriation of such goods and/or services what restructured the sense of the complementarity. The goods and services that used to be produced in Puna oases and were oriented to interregional articulation -such as vicuña wool, yarn, or textiles, and intermediation and transport across the Puna space-, as well as other new goods and services such as metal, became under the control of societies from the lowlands valleys. The Belén enclave in Antofagasta de la Sierra could have been a case -perhaps one of the earliest cases- of Puna enclave.

The Oasis after the Oasis In first place, enclaves are different from oases because it is not an agricultural orientation but the localization of necessary goods in order to extract and processing them what determines their settlement. They do not have a domestic organization; their settlement is organized following the logistics of the productive practices of extraction, elaboration, and transport of resources of interest that, thus, structure the space according to the demands and possibilities of control of such resources and labour force. The daily reproduction of the labour force of enclaves might have been supplied by more or less nearby agricultural oases. Hence, oases did not necessarily disappear but, better, they just turned into satellites of particular enclaves and, through them, became related to the market. Enclaves never answered to local historical processes; they have answered to the socio-economic and political dynamics of the socioeconomic systems from the lowlands valleys, Andean and European empires, and, finally, to contemporary global economy. Oases could have inserted themselves in the economy of enclaves in a secondary role, as suppliers of labour force, provisions, cargo animals and skills within the local geography.

Around the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D., the regional panorama seems to have changed completely. New ways of construction of sociality, with gathered villages and fortified settlements, appeared in valleys and alluvial basins (Raffino 1988). At the same time, a stricter way of demarcating regional identities seems to have developed in the different areas41 (Tarragó 1987). It has also been suggested that a process of demographic concentration and productive growth could have crystallized at Humahuaca valley during the same period (Nielsen 1996). But, on the other hand, these processes do not seem to have affected each one of the different integrating parts of the south-Andean world in the same way42. In the puna and suni stripes of the Altiplano, a new type of settlement that will give room to the enclave landscape seems to initiate. By beginnings of the 1970’s, Raffino and Cigliano introduced an interpretation of the site of La Alumbrera, which is on the southern shore of Antofagasta lagoon, at the foot of the great basaltic ladle Los Negros, in which they described it as a Belén enclave 39 It is, besides, an area strongly harmed by winds, where, apart from marsh vegetation, there is not even shrub-like vegetation. 40 Stratigraphic excavations in the named sites are expected to be carried out as continuation of this work. 41 Phenomenon that, among other things, has led to characterize this period as ‘regional developments’. 42 Though in an attempt of understanding them as historical phenomenons of wide geographical scale better than as mere heuristics, Lorandi has already pointed out the pan-Andean nature of horizons.

An example of enclave of repeated settlements throughout a long period seems to shape around Incahuasi’s gold resources, in the homonym peninsula to 43 To avoid the dispersion of bibliographic references, just see Aldenderfer (1993) and Stanish (1992).

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Figure 8.26: Ih3. Ingaguassi ruins, eighteenth century village by Hombre Muerto basin.

Figure 8.27: Ih4. Sector of Ingaguassi village.

the southwest of Hombre Muerto basin44. On the top of a promontory of relatively soft aspect, there are the ruins of an eighteenth century village known as Nuestra Señora del Loreto de Ingaguassi (Ih3) (Figure 8.26), head of Incahuasi Annex (Cassasas Cantó 1974), that happened to be venue of the known indigenous rebellion of 1775 (Hidalgo 1982). A settlement that is surely related to Ih3 though at a certain distance if Ih5, on the edge of Incahuasi marsh. Agua Salada (Ih5) is formed by two groups of structures. One of them is parallel to the water course, and the other is parallel to the road that, wedged with stone blocks, goes from the marsh towards Loreto de

Ingaguassi village (Figure 8.28). Even though these sites have been interpreted as Inca enclave (Olivera 1991) and as Spanish enclave (Hidalgo 1982), recent studies allow doubting both interpretations. Despite the village was considered abandoned towards ends of the eighteenth century (Hidalgo 1978), Incahuasi’s gold mines have been reason of settlements all throughout it (Figure 8.29). Though by the beach of the salt lake, a last enclave (Ih2) settled in the gold mine during the first half of the twentieth century in order to take advantage of the discarded material of the exploitations (Figure 8.30). A cemetery (Ih1), some 500 m to the west, houses the bodies of Mina Incahuasi workers. More recent investigations allow reviewing the idea according to which Loreto de Ingaguassi would have been a settlement that answered to the logic of enclaves during the eighteenth century. Mina Incahuasi, instead, seems to

44

A recognition trip to the locality of Incahuasi was made in 1999 by invitation of the Comisión Nacional de Monumentos Históricos with Carlos Barbosa, Néstor Kriscantzky, and Eduardo Solá. The visit counted with the support of the Dirección de Minería of Catamarca Province and the Minera del Altiplano S.A.

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Figure 8.28: Ih5. Settlement in Incahuasi marsh. It is formed by two architectonic groups and a road that probably heads to the gold mine.

Figure 8.29: Nuestra Señora del Loreto de Ingaguassi chapel in Ih3.

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Figure 8.30: Ih2. Mina Incahuasi, twentieth century ruins. The picture was taken from the top of the promontory where Ih3 is. Below and to the centre, the entrance to the main open mine can be seen. Beyond, an embankment was formed with the discarded material. Part of the village was built on that material.

fully represent, in the whole, such landscape structure. Great part of the labour force and provisions of Mina Incahuasi (Ih2) came from Antofagasta de la Sierra village.

lower third of the upper stage; from there on, adobes continue. The roofs (judging by oral references given by inhabitants of the area and by the pictures taken in 1923) were of two sides. The entrance to the lower stage room was built in arch with wedged stones, and the ceiling is a dry-joined stones vault. A circular platform upon which the fixed grindstone rests lies on such vault; the axis would have formerly gone through all of them. Other constructions, including several of the houses currently inhabited by Antofalla families, are associated to this building. The settlement was organized in two parallel lines; the upper one came from the building of the mill, and the lower one is the main street of the current village (Figure 8.35). The settlement of Antofalla, with its size and sophisticated road network and architecture, must be included in the so called Bolivian cycle of silver-mining of the nineteenth century. It is known that the enterprise once belonged to Indalecio Gómez y Ríos, a merchant and landlord from Salta that was killed in hands of an armed party that attacked his own house of Molinos in 1862 (de Santillán 1957; Holmberg 1988 [1900]; Piccirilli et al. sf). The active intervention of merchants from Salta in the silver mining enterprises in Bolivia during the nineteenth century has been subject of specific studies (Platt 1995-1996). The mining enterprises settled in the Altiplano interacted with the local populations asking -and even depending on them for it- for the supply of mules and llamas for the transportation of mineral, fuel, and provisions (Platt 1987). But it is highly probable, nonetheless, that local peasant populations were the ones that actually started the exploitation of the silver mines and that the most visible remains of industrial settlement only belong to the last stage of concentration of the control of the productive process in hands of the commercial capital.

Another example of enclave is formed by a series of evidences related to the extraction, processing, and transport of silver mineral in the valleys of Las Minas and Antofalla during mid-nineteenth century. The mineral was extracted from the mines of El Volcán (or Volcán Antofalla), where we previously mentioned having identified mining camp Old Camp (LM1) (Figure 8.31). Remains of a road infrastructure (LM2, LM3, LM5, LM7, LM8, LM9, LM10, LM13, LM16 y LM19) (Figure 8.32) associated to shelters (LM4, LM14, LM15, LM17 y LM18) (Figure 8.33), stopping places (LM6), outposts (LM11) (Figure 8.33), and corrals (LM12) (Figure 8.34) that would have served the transport of mineral, fuel, and provisions between the mining camp (LM1) at 4,000 m asl and the operative and processing headquarters at Antofalla valley (Af1) were found all along Las Minas valley. In LM1 and Af1, there are remains of ovens, and in Af1, there are remains of a mineral mill built on stone and adobe architecture45. It is a two stages building. The access to the upper stage is by the north, and it has a stone-cemented paved floor of two levels divided by a step. On the upper level, there is a big fixed mill stone with axial perforation (Figure 8.35). Several grindstones with their rims used have been found in the nearby areas. The second stage could have been some kind of decanting pool. The axis went down, where it wedged in the floor of the lower stage that was a small room where the axis might have been rotated by pushing a crosspiece. The walls are made of stone and they are wedged up to the 45 Af1 was excavated in 1993 and both stages were found completely covered with sheep manure. Daniel Delfino, Juan Ferreyra, Gabriela Granizo, Marcos Quesada, and Fernanda Videla took part in the excavations.

All the enclaves that have been briefly described were determined by location factors that depended on the 247

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Figure 8.31: LM1. Old Camp, mining camp in Las Minas valley from where, during the nineteenth century, the silver mines of El Volcán were exploited.

Figure 8.32: LM10. Wedged stretch of the road network of Las Minas valley that joins mining camp LM1 with Antofalla.

Figure 8.33: Shelter LM4 (to the left) and outpost LM11 (to the right) associated to the nineteenth century mining road network of Las Minas valley.

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Figure 8.34: LM14. Pirca Colorada corral in Las Minas valley. It is located upslope of the second narrow of the valley, by the nineteenth century mining road network.

Figure 8.35: Af1. Sight from the upper stage of Antofalla Trapiche. The big fixed mill-stone can be seen on a stone platform. Under such platform, there is the vault of the lower stage, where the vertical axis that went through the hole of the mill-stone was rotated. The bottom of the constructions on the main street of the village and, further, Antofalla’s campo and the slat lake can be seen in the background.

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA active part in the conformation and reproduction of the macro-regional space. Thus, the origins of the oasis must be looked for both in the regional cultural tradition, and in the macro-Andean historic context. Finally, since the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries A.D., slowly and progressively -and while the conditions were changing throughout the macro-regional space-, the enclave landscape started getting superposed to the oasis in the Puna environment in general. In the north of the Antofalla basin, the enclave landscape has been getting superposed to the oasis since the nineteenth century. As part of the same process through which the enclave landscape turned dominant since the twentieth century, the literature of travellers and explorers created the Puna de Atacama as a geographic category. This has allowed the concealment of the oasis not only as a result of the superposition of the enclave landscape; at the same time and more important to urban culture-, it allowed it through the discursive construction of the Puna de Atacama as a description of the natural landscape.

specific resources that were going to be exploited by the off-Puna agents that had installed them. The structure of the settlements obeys criterions that have strictly to do with the organization of the exploitation of the resources and labour force doomed to it. The settlement of enclaves included the building of transport infrastructures such as road networks and support settlements, but local communities must have quite likely had to take part in the supply of fuel, provisions, labour force, and cargo animals (Platt 1987). These local communities were progressively left out by the enclaves regarding the access to and the control over the mining resources but, in some cases, they afterwards regain such control once those had declined. Furthermore, in some cases, as Antofalla village seems to illustrate, it has been oases the ones that have redefined enclave settlements according to their own peasant logic. To those that visited the Puna being related to enclaves in one way or the other -at least sharing their ‘outsider’ perspective-, the Puna was perceived as a truly deserted place inhabited by people that did not know any promise of future. In short, it was a marginal region. Such notion, as it has been shown in Chapter 2, permeated the imaginary of travellers and geographers creating the content of the Puna de Atacama as geographical category. Such category was assumed by archaeology in its interpretations of the long history of the Puna the Atacama who, thus, incorporated the idea of marginality to them as if it was a natural fact. This work has tried to show that the idea of the Puna de Atacama as a homogeneously marginal region had a specific historical origin that happened to be precisely associated to landscape narrations of a time of enclaves. It has also been shown that, before enclaves, the oasis landscape used to dominate and, hence, that its understanding is concomitant of the capability of producing a crisis in the categories that, despite seeming natural, are, actually, historical. But, having reached to this point -that is the same from which this work was started-, it is timely to give it an ending. Between the fourth and twelfth centuries A.D., though probably already from the second and third centuries A.D. and until the thirteenth century A.D., an economic and symbolic rationality based on the construction and reproduction of the oasis landscape prevailed at the basin of the Antofalla salt lake, which is the centre of the region known as Puna de Atacama or Puna Salada. The oasis landscape was both a way of economic appropriation of the natural environment, and a way of actual delimitation of the domestic social units and kinship groups. The oasis constituted a manner of domestic relationship that included, at one time, the domestication of the Puna environment as well as that of the society as a whole. Far away from implying a selfsufficiency ideal, the oasis meant a permanent flow of interaction between different oases, and between these and other surrounding areas. This way, the oasis had nothing to do with isolation but the opposite; it was an 250

Epilogue to An Archaeology of the Oasis while the state went towards the frontier, the dinner left place to the dance, and the dance, to the farewell.

In December 1996, a long, difficult, and exhausting trip was made by van, from Tebenquiche Chico to Antofallita, with Hugo Romero, in charge of radio communications during the field work, and Antolín Reales, known inhabitant of Antofalla. The path that, following the coast of the salt lake, went towards the north, did not know other vehicle than the ambulance from Tolar Grande, Salta province, that visited, once every several months, the inhabitants of Antofallita aiming to make the locality part of the jurisdiction of Salta, and not Catamarca, despite the compulsory pass through Antofalla. Antofallita is a little oasis where only two families live. Getting to the first house gave room to the habitual sequence of introductions, explanations, and comments. Since the archaeological sites were nearby the second house, asking about the neighbouring family was a must. These questions, surprisingly, were answered by not knowing anything. The second family said almost the same regarding their closer to the valley’s mouth neighbours once that, having visited the sites, the farewell conversation took place. But these two neighbours, whose neighbourhood was at the same time every chance of socialization outside the domestic space they had, did not only deny each other discursively, but also materially: despite the nearness of both houses, it was almost impossible to see one from the other due to their location, and due to the grove and fences their inhabitants -and their ancestors- had taken care of placing. Everything seemed to feed the suspicion that, there too, domesticity was a pattern of representations of practice -and a pattern of practices of representation- that held the life in the oasis. The oasis seemed to be formed by the addition of two houses that showed themselves -and spoke themselves- as two autonomous cells.

When we returned to Antofalla, in March 1997, it was amazing to hear that the vial machine was working on the improvement of the road to Antofallita, and that, behind the machine, there was the ambulance, with the doctor and the intendant. That was the first time an official representative of the provincial state arrived to Antofallita, and he was doing it while he prepared the road and took medical assistance to its inhabitants. It was natural we asked ourselves: How determinant were the archaeological survey trip and the comment made that night on the party to the arrival of the state to Antofallita? In which ways will the lives of the people of Antofallita change now that they are no longer the only ones that regulate the contact with the world beyond their oasis? Up to what extent wasn’t that survey trip a starting point after which the expansion of the state in such a far-away locality of the salt lake became possible? In short, which is the future of the oasis? In what ways will the expansion of the state influence it? And which is the role archaeological practice has been playing in this process? It is never wrong to put these questions aside the moaning about the assumed extinction -real or probable- of the last savages, their traditions, beliefs, and rituals in front of the not less assumed unstoppable advance of progress. We do not intend to go deeper on this in here, but it is evident that there is not a concern regarding the lost of no one’s cultural essence within this reflection. But the experience of change that has occurred in Antofagasta de la Sierra during the last decades does allow seeing how the structures of the oasis give in in front of the advance of the state. The considerable diminishment of the capability of peasant local groups for creating autonomous alternatives is the other necessary side of medical assistance, state assitentialism, and widening of the communications with the outer world. It seems that the cost of turning the village into global village includes incorporating the urban miseries yet without leaving the village. It is not about nostalgia for isolation because, as it has been made clear throughout these pages, there is a really long tradition of interaction with the circum-Puna environment in the area: an oasis is not an island. But the manoeuvre capability between peasant self-subsistence and merchant articulation is progressively diminished to those that, seduced by a mermaid song or pushed by one or another circumstance, take a road that, getting further of the peasant world every time, seems one of difficult, if not impossible, return.

Some weeks afterwards but with these impressions still fresh, a goodbye party offered by the people of Antofalla took place before the whole group of archaeologists, anthropologists, and students started its return. Locro was waiting in the pot of the school while chairs and dishes, brought by each one of the families, were being set. The intendant of Antofagasta de la Sierra, that had gone to Antofalla on a truck to pick up archaeologists, materials, and equipment, did not miss the dinner either, and even less the later dance that, after all, was the purpose of the reunion. The head of the table, where the intendant -the first intendant chosen by universal suffrage and not by designation of the governor as it used to be done until then- had also been seated, was a suitable place for getting fed and at the same time feeding a conversation that, as the path that goes through the coast of the slat lake, arrived to the trip to Antofallita. Surprised, the intendant then told us a bunch of things -among which there were no missing stories about unaware travellers that would have been subdued to cannibalism or buried alive in the salt lake- that, according to him, were said about the inhabitants of Antofallita. With the feeling of new constructions of the natural and the wild appearing

Which is the role of archaeologists, who should not be considered neutral agents of the future just because their interest is focused on the past, in such process? Not because being an archaeologist implies some kind of difference by itself but just for being those who have walked paths when nobody else did it, and, in some

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DOMESTICITY, INTERACTION, AND IDENTITY IN ANTOFALLA in front of that somewhat apocalyptic impression of Antofallita. Not denying the risk that the expansion of the state can mean to relatively marginal peasant populations, up to what extent are not those same peasant societies the ones who ask for the access to new and diverse ways of articulation? If the school can be understood within these local strategic demands, why can’t the relationship to archaeologists be understood the same way? After all, it is archaeologists who, in the end and even with much more limited resources than mining enterprises and state agencies, keep, guided by an interest for the past that is as strange to local inhabitants as any particular interest of other enclave, a presence that might not be too long but that sure is recurrent and very extensive throughout time. Perhaps the interest for knowing the past of the oasis interest that has mobilized tens of people in all types of vehicles, opened roads in the sand by force of going through the own tracks once and again, and built a stone building pompously called camp- is at the same an instrument for the inhabitants of the oasis themselves. After all, it is them who know, better than anyone else, how to imagine in each traveller that comes near their oasis -even those that come near it because of its past- the ways of articulating their future. The reproduction of the oasis seems to be thus given by the capability of peasant families for turning, quietly but efficiently, that other landscape -the enclave that seems to impose to them-, that other approach -the science that considers them as object-, and that other look -the traveller that sees them as nature- into own benefits. Maybe that is the teaching of two thousand years of oasis history.

occasions, those that have even opened them ‘for the very first time’, it is that archaeological practice has been left immerse in a process of change that, paradoxically, might turn into archaeological what is still daily lived in the oases. Archaeological practice in Antofalla salt lake itself has had the shape of the enclave better than that of the oasis, and to that extent, it resembles the mine endeavours of the area. But the oasis, a landscape that is still lived in Antofalla salt lake, could disappear if, as Sahlins suggests, the fragmentary lineage is weak in front of the state (Sahlins 1994). Up to what extent haven’t those that have tried to know the past of the oasis unnoticeably contributed to definitely alter its future? *

*

*

The first recognition trip to the valleys that come down to Antofalla salt lake was started by the end of 1989. Crossing the salt lake through Las Quinoas, from Antofagasta de la Sierra and by mule, is long and blinding. Las Quinoas can be seen from the distance as an intense green spot. There, a couple of teachers from Buenos Aires had recently arrived: they were the first teachers of Las Quinoas. The pupils came from Potrero Grande, Botijuela, and Antofalla (where there actually was a school already but pupils were sent to Las Quinoas anyway so to pressure for the creation of a second school in the salt lake). Not without first ‘taking care’ of a kid that was a little ill and was being medicated by his father with expired medication left there by some geologist and only following a somewhat free association of colours and posology, an ‘assembly’ was held. The complete village of Las Quinoas had gathered together in the room for the creation of the school. Even Abuela Asunción had come from Potrero Grande and, without saying a word, nodded as if she was granting the necessary blessing to the decisions of her children regarding the future of her grandchildren. Everybody, even the archaeologists, signed the foundation act and, since then, the school has had unforeseen relevance in a series of changes that went off in the village. After the school it came the police, and with the police, the communications. Las Quinoas has now access to the radio network and, among other works, a road and a building for the school have been built. The interesting thing of the case is that the school was created by the mentioned assembly, by request of the inhabitants of Las Quinoas, who, being illiterates, wished their children to have an education without going somewhere else. Not without the mediation of a process of requests to the authorities, the state of Catamarca finally gave place to the local pleas and the school of Las Quinoas was officially created. Everything that happened after that might have been as unexpected to the local inhabitants as to everybody else. The true thing is that the school was, to the village, the germ of a new way of integration to the world. Whether this was part of the local requests or not, it is probable that the education of the children necessarily meant the development of new peasant infrastructures of articulation to the market (Mitchell 1994). It is necessary to introduce, then, some mediations 252

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