On heat and dryness: landscapes, death and materiality in early agricultural societies of the southern Calchaquí valleys (Northwest Argentina, First Millennium AD)

ABSTRACT

The archaeological record of funerary practices of the southern Calchaquí valleys, Northwest Argentina, offers fruitful ground to explore past significances embedded in the material forms of burial traditions. The recurrence of cemeteries and tombs located in sandy soils forwards plausible interpretations with regards to the notion of ‘death’ and the metaphors of ‘heat’ and ‘dryness’, a conceptual link that has been highlighted by ethnohistorical and ethnographic records of the Andes. Such accounts are used here with the purpose of generating interpretative hypotheses. This article argues that the sensorial qualities of particular landscapes and materials were one of the resources used to define the space of the dead during the Formative Period (ca. 1500 BC–1000 AD) in the southern Calchaquí valleys.

KEYWORDS:

• Funerary practices
• materiality
• landscape
• Northwest Argentina
• Southern Andes
• Formative Period

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to all the people at La Quebrada for their generosity and hospitality during our field trips and to all those who collaborated in the archaeological campaigns. To María Cristina Scattolin for her constant support and guidance. This work was funded by several projects directed by Prof. Scattolin granted by the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET PIP 486 and PIP 256), the National Agency for Promotion of Science and Technology (ANPCyT PICT Raíces 116 and PICT Raíces 633), and the National University of La Plata, Argentina. I am thankful to Marisa Lazzari and the three anonymous reviewers that provided extremely helpful advice for improving the final version of the article. All mistakes and omissions remain my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1.  Within this scenario, the paradoxical association of burning and death in one side, and the almost inexistence of cremation practices, in the other (Gose 1994, 130) becomes intriguing. Interestingly, archaeological evidences of cremation practices are almost inexistent in NWA (Cortés 2005). In relation to this, Peter Gose has argued that cremation has not been widely practiced in the Andes because ‘it violates the idea that the dead should be dried out in the underworld, to provide the living with water’ (Gose op cit.).

2.  The earliest evidence for the peopling of NWA goes back to 11,000 years BP indicating that the first hunter-gatherer groups of the Archaic Period already inhabited this area during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (López, Colca, and Orsi 2009; Martínez et al. 2013; Martínez 2018). By the Middle Holocene (ca. 8400–5200 years BP) a major environmental change encouraged a modification in hunter-gatherer mobility patterns, pre-dating both the appearance of the domesticated llama (Lama glama) and the construction of corral structures that suggest the keeping of camelids in captivity (Yacobaccio 2003). In the Puna, this stage of incipient pastoralism was characterized by a low density sparsely distributed population, reduced residential mobility, craft specialization, weak social hierarchies and long-distance exchange networks (Yacobaccio 2004; Aschero 2007; Aschero and Hocsman 2011). The second millennium BC witnessed the transition from the specialized hunter-gatherers of the Archaic Period to the early farming villages of the Formative Period (Aschero and Hocsman 2011). The pastoralist and agricultural lifestyle, lead by subsistence diversification through the introduction of plant cultivation and animal domestication consolidated during the Formative Period (ca. BC 1500–1000 AD) (Núñez Regueiro 1974; Tarragó 1996, 1992; Olivera 2001; Scattolin 2006). Although mostly self-sufficient, these communities were also involved in dynamic social interactions oriented towards the distribution and exchange of local products on a regional scale, including different ecological areas of NWA and northern Chile, possibly enhanced by the introduction of llama caravans (Núñez and Dillehay 1979; Browman 1980; Albeck 1994; Lazzari 2006; Nielsen 2013). The following Late or Regional Developments Period (ca. AD 1000–1450), time of fully agricultural societies, attends the consolidation of highly hierarchical social systems with clear-cut territorial boundaries maintained through the political control of other ecological areas, agglomerated settlements and warfare. These changes were in probable response to a cycle of severe droughts that triggered conflicts over the control of more stable water sources for irrigation (Nielsen 1996, 2001). Towards the middle of the fifteenth-century AD, with the annexation of NWA to the Inca Empire, local groups were displaced and reorganized, Inca craft styles and architectural patterns were transferred to the conquered areas as one form of control and domination (Cremonte and Williams 2007). Soon after, the Europeans colonized the area, leading to massive changes in local culture.

3.  Although this cemetery has been subject of systematic looting, one undisturbed burial was excavated in 2009 corresponding to an adult male placed in a hiper-genuflected position with two rounded stones on top of the body. This burial was dated by AMS to 1915±47 BP (AA87292, bone, cal. 30–242 AD, 2 sigma [Stuiver and Reimer 1986–2005]) indicating that the Duna Cemetery was in use contemporary to the villages of Cardonal and Bordo Marcial (Cortés 2011, 2012, 2013).

4.  Vladimiro Weiser was an engineer born in Prague in 1878. After arriving for the first time to Argentina in 1912, in 1920 Weiser was hired by the rich archeology enthusiast, Benjamin Muniz Barreto who sponsored and financed a series of expeditions to NWA (in particular, to the Provinces of Jujuy, Tucumán and Catamarca) to recover aboriginal antiquities. Between 1920 and 1929, Weiser collected thousands of archaeological objects which are now curated at the La Plata Museum (Argentina). This collection – made up of about twelve thousand objects – is mainly the result of the excavation of pre-Hispanic cemeteries and isolated graves. Unfortunately, Weiser did not collect any of the associated human remains. Notwithstanding, apart from the inherent value of the objects themselves, and contrary to most explorers of the time, Weiser left detailed field notes, maps and drawings of the sites and sepulchers he excavated which are now an invaluable document for modern archaeologists (Scattolin 2019).

5.  The ‘Salamanca’ probably makes reference to the Hispanic legend about ‘magical places’ where the devil lives and where witchcraft is learnt (Farberman 2005, 121).

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Leticia Inés Cortés

Leticia Inés Cortés. Doctora of the University of Buenos Aires, Archaeology orientation (2011). MSc in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK (2007). Licenciada in Anthropological Sciences, Archaeology orientation, University of Buenos Aires (2005). National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) Assistant Researcher (since 2014). Senior Practical coordinator for core UG module Biological Anthropology and Paleoanthropology, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires (since 2009). Research interests include the social study of human remains, funerary archaeology, bioarchaeology and the materialities associated with bodies. My work focuses on the first agricultural societies of the Formative Period (ca. 1500 BC-1000 AD) of Northwest Argentina. Since 2002, I am member of the PASCAL (Pasado Calchaquí) research project led by Professor M. C. Scattolin, funded by CONICET and the Argentinean National Agency for Promotion of Science and Technology (ANPCyT). I directed the project ANPCyT PICT 2012-531 ‘Ancient DNA and kinship relations of the Southern Calchaquí valleys (6000–1300 AP)’ together with Dr. M. Laura Parolin between 2012–2014.