Browsing by Author "Gallardo, Francisco"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    CONSUMPTION CONSUMES: CIRCULATION, EXCHANGE, AND VALUE OF SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA BLACK POLISHED CERAMICS
    (2017) Gallardo, Francisco; Correa, Itaci; Pimentel, Gonzalo; Francisco Blanco, Jose
    Exchange goods contribute to social complexity and identity construction, but our knowledge of past practices associated with the circulation and consumption of such goods is limited. We explore the polished black ceramics of the San Pedro de Atacama oasis in northern Chile, which were widely traded during the first seven centuries A.D. In particular, we consider the relationships established between the agricultural and pastoral communities of the highland oases and the marine hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Pacific coast in order to examine the circulation and consumption of exotics as prestige goods.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Modeling Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices (BWP) on the Coast of Northern Chile's Atacama Desert During the Formative Period
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2017) Smith, Erin K.; Pestle, William J.; Clarot, Alejandro; Gallardo, Francisco
    Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen is frequently employed as a means of studying the breastfeeding and weaning practices (BWP) of archaeological populations. Such studies are strengthened greatly through the application of statistical models that permit precise and model-bound estimates of weaning age, duration, trophic enrichment, and the isotopic characterization of supplementary foods. Here we present the result of a stable isotope (N-15) and Bayesian computational modeling study of bone collagen from human subadults from two coastal cemetery sites located near the mouth of the River Loa in the Atacama Desert. Recent bioarchaeological and paleodemographic research on remains from these marine hunter-gatherer sites, which are contemporary with the Formative Period (1500 BC-AD 400), has found evidence for notably elevated rates of female fertility. Ultimately, we argue that the modeled BWP parameters, which indicate the early introduction of supplementary foods, support an argument of high fertility as gleaned from the bioarchaeological evidence, and that these results provide novel insights into the child-rearing practices of the coastal populations of the Atacama. Indeed, these populations would have seemed to have developed a set of BWP that carefully balanced the biological and economic production/reproduction of the community.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    On the pathways. Inter-nodal archaeology in the Atacama desert Pampa (c. 7000 BP-400 BP)
    (2023) Pimentel, G. Gonzalo; Ugarte, F. Mariana; Blanco, Jose F.; Montero-Poblete, Claudia; Gili, Juan; Arevalo, Javier; Gallardo, Francisco; Torres, Christina M.; Pestle, William J.
    We present a synthesis of our investigation into pre-Hispanic pathways of the Atacama Desert Pampa-one of the driest and harshest environments on our planet-where we have identified a variety of mobility strategies and dynamics deployed by the different communities that inhabited both the Pacific coast and the inland oases of this region. Specifically, we focus on the inter-nodal archaeological and biogeochemical data that provides direct evidence of the presence of individuals from myriad regions traversing this area from the Middle Archaic to Late periods (c. 7000 BP-400 BP). Moreover, we analyze how, beginning in the Formative Period, this multiplicity of peoples employed different mobility systems, circulation, relationships, and social exchanges to integrate this apparent "empty space". In doing so, we discuss and reformulate the classic highland caravanning model of the Andes, which considered highland caravanning groups as the only agents promoting long-distance mobility and exchange.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Reciprocal exchange, value, and forms of transaction: an archaeological approach from the Atacama Desert (northern Chile)
    (2022) Gallardo, Francisco
    Exotic goods belong to a class of valuable materials that have played an important role in ritual activities, political ceremonies, and economic agreements in different human contexts, both past and present. However, we have made little progress in understanding exchanges as relationships between donors and receivers, as forms of reciprocal interaction that forged a network of links between individuals and groups of different cultural traditions. Although the archaeological record presents multiple limitations in the study of these interactions, an exploratory archaeological perspective allows researchers to examine questions related to the social character of exchanges, the value attributed to goods, and the ways in which these circulated. I argue that the presence of exotic goods is an indicator of intercultural social relations whose values are expressed through their consumption. They represent a relational materiality between humans and nonhumans, which allows us to discuss forms of reciprocity and the cultural nature of the network of long-distance exchanges. Here, I present case studies from archaeological localities in the Atacama Desert (northern Chile) during the Formative Period (800 BCE-400 CE) to illustrate these concepts.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Silvopastoralism and the shaping of forest patches in the Atacama Desert during the Formative Period (ca. 3000-1500 years BP)
    (2022) McRostie, Virginia; Babot, Pilar; Calas, Elisa; Gayo, Eugenia; Gallardo, Francisco; Godoy-Aguirre, Carolina; Labarca, Rafael; Latorre, Claudio; Nunez, Lautaro; Ojeda, Karla; Santoro, Calogero M.; Valenzuela, Daniela
    During the Formative period by the Late-Holocene (ca. 3000-1500 BP), semi-sedentary and sedentary human occupations had emerged in the oases, salares, and riverine systems in the central depression (2400-1000 masl) of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile (19-25 degrees S). This hyperarid core was marginally occupied during the post-Pleistocene and middle Holocene droughts. Settlement on these lower belts was accompanied by a rise in humidity, the introduction of Andean crops, flourishment of Prosopis spp. (algarrobo) forests, and increasing integration of domestic camelid caravans. Here, we explore lowland husbandry within risk-spreading strategies, focusing on silvopastoralism and endozoochory between camelids and algarrobos. Analysis of camelid coprolites from seven archeological sites located in the Pampa del Tamarugal, Loa River, and Salar de Atacama found intense grinding from camelid chewing and indicated a ruminal digestive system. Abundant macro and microremains in the form of tissues, phytoliths, crystals, cell structures, and others, were identified as Prosopis, Atriplex, Schoenoplectus, Distichlis, and Phragmites. We conclude that camelids were foraging for Prosopis, although the rather low number of entire seeds preserved in the coprolites leads us to think that these herbivores might not have been the main vectors for the spread and germination of algarrobos. More samples and interdisciplinary studies are needed to comprehend the complex socioecological web in the shaping of these forests and the management of the Atacama Desert landscapes.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The ways of fish beyond the sea: fish circulation and consumption in the Atacama desert, northern Chile, during the Formative period (500 cal BC-700 cal AD.)
    (2019) Ballester, Benjamin; Calas, Elisa; Labarca, Rafael; Pestle, William; Gallardo, Francisco; Castillo, Claudia; Pimentel, Gonzalo; Oyarzo, Cristobal
    Along the Atacama Desert coast, fish has always been a staple food and by the Formative period (500 cal B.C.-700 cal A.D.) it had become a product in high demand by the inhabitants of the inland valleys, oases and ravines of the desert. In this paper we explore the technologies used in coastal fishing activities, the diverse species caught, and fish processing and preserving techniques. We further examine the circulation routes of the product through the desert and associated strategies, the agents involved in transporting it and consumption levels in inland villages. Our study employs a multivariate analysis that includes evidence from zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis of deceased individuals, and the composition of human coprolites, all of which were recovered from domestic waste, funerary contexts, and rest stops associated with the circulation routes running between the coast and the inland desert regions. Our results suggest that in this ancient social context, food was not only used to quell hunger, but through its associated economic cycles of production, circulation and consumption, was part of a complex and extended web of social relations. Within that network, food functioned as material culture, and as such enabled social distinctions to emerge within local groups and cultural negotiations to be conducted among different localities. Fish circulation and consumption played an active role in the reproduction of a social structure characterized by dose and firm ties between marine hunter-fisher-gatherers and agropastoral communities, despite their long distance from each other.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Yendegaia Rockshelter, the First Rock Art Site on Tierra del Fuego Island and Social Interaction in Southern Patagonia (South America)
    (2023) Gallardo, Francisco; Cabello, Gloria; Sepulveda, Marcela; Ballester, Benjamin; Fiore, Danae; Prieto, Alfredo
    Through our research at Bahia Yendegaia on the Beagle Channel in southernmost Patagonia-the ancestral territory of the Yagan people-we discovered the first rock art site on Tierra del Fuego Island. The geometric visual images found at Yendegaia Rockshelter present motifs and compositions analogous to those recorded at other sites on the southern archipelago associated with the marine hunter-gatherer tradition. They also show graphic similarities to the rock art paintings attributed to terrestrial hunter-gatherer populations from the Pali Aike volcanic field, located on the north side of the Strait of Magellan in mainland Patagonia. Both, however, display quantitative differences, which suggest that they emerged from different visual traditions but from the same field of graphic solutions. Navigational technology enabled the canoe-faring Fuegian people to have long-distance mobility and to maintain a flow of social information mediated via visual imagery expressed in material forms, such as rock art and expressions of portable art. Ethnohistoric reports suggest a cooperative social interaction more than a competitive one. This cooperative social dynamic would have been necessary for the survival of marine societies in the harsh environmental conditions characteristic of the southern part of south Patagonia.