Erik J. Marsh, Silvina Castro, Valeria Cortegoso, Kristin Carline, Savanna Buehlman-Barbeau y Jennifer De Alba

In the central Argentine Andes, the earliest evidence of domestic crops, pottery, cemeteries, domestic camelids, and the bow and arrow dates from approximately two thousand years ago. In contrast to traditional expectations, these Neolithic changes did not occur together. To evaluate the synchronic or diachronic nature of these changes in northern Mendoza (Argentina), we parsed six phases with 92 published dates, five of which are unpublished, and four paleoclimatic proxies for the time span of 3790–1010 cal BP. We refined the phases with archaeological data from the Uspallata Valley around Cerro Tunduqueral, which is known for its rock art. The lithic analysis of the Alero Tunduqueral site provides evidence of mainly expeditious strategies, direct provisioning of local resources, and embedded mobility to acquire more distant raw materials. We estimate the cost of acquiring raw material with a friction surface of walking hours using a GIS. These data allow us to propose a phase without Neolithic elements (phase 1), followed by an early presence of domestic crops during a neoglacial advance (phase 2). The latter led to a population displacement to the lower areas associated with the first ceramics and houses (phase 3), before there was a return to the higher areas (phases 4-6), coinciding with increased regional precipitation.

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Carlos Mayo-Torné, Jesús Herrerín y Yadixa Mayin Del Valle-Guardia

This article presents the results of an analysis of paleo dermatoglyphs, calculating the mean and density of ridge breadth (MRB and MDB) for recently identified fingerprints in ceramic groups from the El Caño site, Panama. This analysis aims to evaluate how ceramic production was organized in ancient Coclé, coinciding with the emergence of craft specialization and hierarchical societies in one of the reference cultures of the macro Isthmo-Colombian Cultural Region. The results of this work show that men, women, and occasionally young people participated in the manufacturing of ceramics in a specialized artisan context. This analysis also revealed, in relation to the most richly decorated ceramics, that there was evidence of their manufacture being carried out predominantly by male labor with an absence of non-adults.

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José María Vaquer y Yamila Cámera

In this paper we offer an interpretation of the ceramic assemblages from Dwelling 1 from Casas Quemadas (Cusi Cusi, Puna of Jujuy, Argentina), relating them to changes and continuities in the way of life of its inhabitants during the Inka Horizon (AD 1430-1535) and Early Colonial Period (AD 1535-1660). We propose that the inhabitants’ ways of life did not alter significantly during the first stages of the Spanish invasion, as the ceramic assemblages did not undergo changes in composition and function. We attribute this phenomenon to the fact that the region was of little importance for the Spanish during the early conquest, so local populations had relative freedom to carry on with their traditional ways of life. The situation changed when colonial rule had taken root in the Puna, as the Dwelling was abandoned and became integrated with the routes of muleteers moving livestock to the mines. Based on the ceramic assemblages and the activities they were used for, we interpret the social processes at a local and global scale, considering domestic space to be the main locus for the production and reproduction of habitus.

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