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In this paper we review the growing evidence of anthropogenic landscapespresent in the semi-deciduous neotropical forest biomes of eastern NW Argentina,which have remained relatively neglected in favour of arid to semi-arid western Andean regions. The evidence gathered in de El Alto-Ancasti provides animportant case study where multidisciplinary methodologies have beenapplied to sites that document the emergence and variability in food productionstrategies across the eastern Andean forests and grasslands of NWArgentina. We discuss evidence offarming structures from archaeological surveys, plant management from phy-tolith analysis, and the tempo and nature of settlement from archaeological excavations undertaken at a variety of sites in the El Alto Ancasti mountainrange. We suggest that the communities that inhabited this region during thefirst millennium AD (ca. 1500–1000 BP) established a strategy of 'overlappingpatchworks' of food production that were able to contend with considerableseasonal variability. We argue that, through the use of cross-channelling, low river areas, erosion control techniques and the establishment of mesothermal crops,including maize, legumes, and tubers, throughout the region, these societies adopted flexible strategies to adapt to life in a region prone to climatic change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of fish intensification in the subsistence of hunter-gatherers and fishers who inhabited the Beagle Channel region in southern South America. The main goal is to identify and to understand the multiple factors and conditions under which fishing intensification operated in this area, regarding it as a process integrated by multiple potential strategies. Ichthyoarchaeological assemblages from eight sites are examined against the predictions of a general intensification model evaluating variations in animal-based subsistence through time. Spatial, environmental and historical dimensions of the intensification process are analysed and evidence of increased effort in fishing activities is observed. Results support the existence of a foraging reorganization on a regional scale, a mechanism by which fish productivity was raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many American cultivated species have been domesticated in the Neotropical Lowlands. While the southern limit of some cultivars (e.g. maize) is relatively well known for the Andean Region, the south-western limit of lowland horticulture has been poorly established in South America. Sixteenth-century European accounts mentioned the presence of cultivated plants in the Delta of the Paraná River, but until now this had not been confirmed by direct archaeobotanical data. This paper presents and discusses the results of starch grains analysis from six archaeological sites of the Paraná Delta (Argentina), ranging from 1302 to 1492 years cal. ad, which confirm the pre-Hispanic presence of cultivars in the area. Wild (algarrobo; South American mesquite) and domesticated (maize and beans) plant remains were found in ceramic containers and on grinding tools from those sites. Our research contributes new data on the late dispersion of cultivated species in the Paraná Delta, an area so far excluded from continental models for the dispersal of cultivars in the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the colonial expansion of modern society has been studied by various disciplines and from a range of theoretical perspectives. South American historical archaeologists in particular have highlighted the homogenizing nature of this global process in order to re-evaluate the particular nature of different contexts in time and space. This paper focuses on the articulation between the scales of the global and the local and explores the role of local processes in the constitution of colonial societies. Latin-American postcolonial theory - or decolonized thinking - adds to this debate through the critical assessment of modernity in order to acknowledge colonial legacies in the social sciences. This perspective is presented here in combination with a case study from the Spanish colonization of the Patagonian coast in the late eighteenth century, in particular the settlement of Nueva Poblacion y Colonia de Floridablanca (Bahia San Julian, province of Santa Cruz, Argentina). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to explore the relationship between agricultural soils, land and cult behaviour. We consider that soils, as they were modified by humans, contain key information for the reconstruction of past behaviour linked to super-structural beliefs, not necessarily visible through the conventional material record. In this sense, the manipulation of lands and soils in the Andean region represents the unification of ritual activities and beliefs focused on the Pachamama (Mother Earth). We present the results of a study to examine soil management at a prehispanic agricultural settlement in Northwest Argentina, together with other evidence related to the agricultural symbolic universe, which reveals evidence of land categorization and land use preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I advance understanding of the political dimensions of ritual in archaeology. Ritual practice has been commonly identified within a dualistic schema in which common or everyday activities are set against (and apart from) those practices that have special significance. Conventionally, the latter belong to the realm of ritual in which the sacred, the mysterious, the symbolically significant and the uncommon become institutionalized. Such a rationale constrains ritual within the core economic, social and ideological mechanisms that constitute social structures. After a brief discussion of traditional approaches to ritual in the Andes, I present an alternative interpretation grounded in a relational approach to ritual. Exploring contemporary archaeological contexts in Andean north-west Argentina, I attempt to bridge this divide by emphasizing that ritual is part of social performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Incas climbed many of the highest peaks of the Andes to deposit offerings on their summits. They established places of worship above 6000 metres that would be reached again only four centuries later. The offerings at the high-altitude shrines were dedicated to state deities and local mountain gods and involved a broad range of objects, ranging from gold and silver figurines, shell necklaces and high-quality textiles to pottery and food items. Human sacrifices were also performed on some of the more important peaks. Although Spanish chroniclers wrote about these offerings and the capacocha ceremonies during which they were consecrated, their accounts were based on second-hand sources, and the only direct evidence of them comes from archaeological excavations. The most thoroughly documented of these cult assemblages were recovered on high mountain summits in Peru and Argentina, where the material evidence was exceptionally well preserved. In this study we shall discuss the offering assemblages from mountaintop sites in Argentina. By comparing the archaeological evidence with the chroniclers' accounts, interpretations will be presented regarding the social use, political purpose and symbolic meanings attributed to the objects of dedication, which moved the Incas to ascend the highest Andean mountains in search of power and eternity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses a particular aspect of Rankülche re-emergence in the context set by policies of recognition and aboriginal identity politics in the province of La Pampa (Argentina). It focuses on the analysis of a memorial recently built in the 'middle of nowhere'. Specifically, it explores relationships between spatial practices, material objects of commemoration, and memories of a war of conquest, attempting to identify different modes of connecting landscape and memory ('landscapes of memory' and 'landscape as memory') and their consequences for the struggles for aboriginal recognition. In a more general sense, the article attempts to show that this landscape is a social space lived and built by the performance of multiple forms of memory, which are shown in the competing spatial practices around material forms of representing and remembering past events. This landscape is in this way a particular work of the art of remembering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]