Defensibility Analysis with Geographical Information Systems in a Pukara in the Hualfín Valley, Argentina

Abstract

Cerro Colorado is an archaeological village site located in La Ciénaga de Abajo, in the South East of the Hualfín Valley (Belén, Catamarca, Argentina), at the top of a 150 m hill. It can be defined as a pukara —a fortified site— considering not only its location, but also its defensive walls, and the naturally inaccessible character of certain areas. Most of the radiocarbon data dates the site’s occupation to the first half of the fifteenth century, that is, around the beginning of the Inka conquest, although some data points to earlier settlement, and other to later periods. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in the valley in terms of the number of structures distributed in five topographically separated sectors. One of these ‘neighborhoods’ is the Central Sector, where singular archaeological contexts have been excavated in a special architectural complex, different from the typical local pattern. In view of these characteristics, the goals of this chapter are first to analyze the differences in the intrasite space and its relationship with the immediate environment, taking into account accessibility and visibility as elements to define defensibility; and second, to evaluate the results in relation to three fundamental problems for the Late and Inka Periods in Northwestern Argentina: intergroup conflicts, chronology, and social inequality.