Grinding, processing, settlement and mobility in hunter-gatherers of the Southern Puna of Argentina (ca. 7000-3200 años a.p.)

Abstract

Grinding artefacts are one of the most common elements for processing in the prehispanic sequence of Northwest Argentina. For a long time they were considered as part of a technology characteristic of agro-pastoralist groups (Albeck 2001; Lagiglia 2001; Olivera 2001; among others), but today we know that the practice of grinding was already present among the hunter-gatherers of the Early Holocene, and that it increased in the Middle Holocene (cf. Babot 2004, 2008). We also know that since its inception the option of grinding was not unique to plant processing and that, as a processing stage, it was at the intersection of multiple paths of goods on their way to be treated for different use or consumption purposes (Babot 2009a).