A social landscape without a center: the circulation of materials and skills in NW Argentina during the first millennium AD

The south-central Andes have provided one of the richest and oldest records of long-distance social interaction in the Americas. In NW Argentina in particular, the Formative period (1500 BC-600 AD) sees the blossoming of sedentary communities that connected across the landscape to access a variety of resources, while expanding their social world beyond daily face-to-face interaction. The project will develop our understanding of the role of the circulation of artefacts in the construction and reproduction of social life among early sedentary communities, at a time when new categories of artefacts emerged and became part of more frequent long-distance relationships. The project seeks to answer the question of how diversified social networks were in the period, by carefully examining rather than assuming the nature, scale, direction, frequency and significance of such contacts.

This project will expand the initial results of previous research conducted by the PI on provenance and technology analysis of lithic artefacts and pottery from the southern Calchaquí valleys of north western Argentina (NWA). This previous pilot study, funded by a British Academy Small Research Grant, proved the sensitivity of the methodology to identify the multiple and possibly competing links that were active between communities at the time, which were sustained through transactions and decisions around the use and manufacture of everyday crafts. The potential revealed by this preliminary project calls for substantive work to be completed through a larger sampling program. While the previous study has provided a useful baseline for a confident discussion of some of the key assumptions that underlie the study of social interaction in the region, it is still far from the sampling sizes that have resulted in robust comparable studies worldwide. Funds are requested for a period of 12 months to carry on with the sampling, processing and publication of the results.

The project will analyze archaeological materials from the valleys of Santa María, Cajón, El Bolsón, Hualfín, and the western slope of the Aconquija Mountains. The human settlement of the area in sparse villages unfolded throughout the first millennium AD, which encompasses the Formative period and the transition to the Late Period when larger polities emerged. Ongoing studies by the PI and collaborators have uncovered little evidence of internal differentiation, yet despite their non-elite characteristics the sites were well-embedded in regional networks involving a wide array of materials and crafts. This contradicts standard models of the period, which have argued for centralized elite control of social networks. Combining geochemical provenance analysis of pottery and lithics, petrography, stone tool analysis and regional mapping, the project will build upon existing research to develop a solid database that will allow the building of an alternative model of social interaction in the period. Except for the previous pilot study, there are no antecedents in the region of comparable research combining materials traditionally studied separately. The project will strongly place the region as an empirical, methodological and theoretical counterpart to related debates worldwide.

Impact summary

The present project will significantly impact on a variety of aspects concerning the overall quality of academic research and practice and the advancement of the public understanding of the processes and principles that govern human social interaction over the long-term. The expected impacts include:

1. Advancement of knowledge about ancient social networks in the south-central Andes through the integration of archeological, geochemical and spatial analytical methods. Through the submission of an article to the highly-ranked journal American Anthropologist, the research will impact upon the wider academic community by providing an important empirical, methodological, and theoretical counterpoint to existing comparable research worldwide.

2. Feeding into existing local academic forums through specific public events, such as an invited talk open to academics, heritage professionals and community stake holders, and the presentation of the project at a prestigious regional academic forum that will establish the baseline for the first major concerted academic effort in archaeological public outreach in Argentina. This will effectively demonstrate the University of Exeter's leading role among UK institutions in the production of empirically sound studies that can improve the understanding of long-term human practices worldwide.

3. Strengthening international relationships between academics in the UK, Argentina and USA. The University of Exeter will act as a nexus for international collaboration in the social study of the material culture of social interaction, thus placing UK-based researchers at the vanguard in this crucial area of research at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. This will be facilitated by the University of Exeter's Centre for the Archaeology of the Americas.

4. Cultural and social benefits will develop following the enhanced knowledge of the local indigenous past, particularly via the demonstration of its diversity and creativity through empirical research. Community-oriented posters and a regularly updated webpage will report on the project aims and activities. The PI will offer to introduce the project to local indigenous stakeholders.

5. Informing innovative ways of thinking about current issues of public concern relative to migrations, cultural transmission and social interaction. The University of Exeter news office will publish the activities and outcomes in its research news website.