Caravan Trails in the Highlands of Northwestern Argentina

Abstract

In this chapter, I present evidence of prehispanic paths in a sector of the highlands, or puna, of northwestern Argentina. The information documented here has allowed for the identification of trails corresponding to llama caravans as well as associated sites, between puna settlements like Antofagasta de la Sierra (Catamarca) and the fertile nearby valleys in the current provinces of Salta and Catamarca. The temporal segment considered here comprises the Formative and Late periods of the local archaeological sequence, between approximately the fourth and sixteenth centuries AD. This allowed examination of the continuity of social interactions between the groups inhabiting these different ecological zones as, while not exclusively, pastoralism was predominant in the puna while agriculture dominated life in the valleys. The research falls within the theoretical-methodological proposals of Internodal Archaeology, an approach that states that the information obtained in internodal spaces, where travel as social practice occurs, constitutes itself as a necessary complement for the information available in the nodes, where settlements are located and where journeys start or end. Internodal archaeology allows approximation of a scarcely considered dimension in interaction studies, one that involves actors, practices and relational contexts enabling or hindering the circulation of goods within such interactions.