Paisajes en un sector de la Quebrada de Humahuaca durante la Etapa Agroalfarera : Arqueologia de Tumbaya (Jujuy, Argentina)

A landscape and ceramics study of Tumbaya located in Quebrada de Humahuaca (northern Argentina). The research aims to improve understanding of local pre-Inca societies and the impact of Inca domination on them from different lines of evidence.

Quebrada de Humahuaca is the center of important and diverse continuous cultural developments and presents places that are key references in the archaeology of Argentina. However, numerous spaces, such as Tumbaya, have not yet been the subject of systematic and intensive research. There, the study began as a response to the interest of the local aboriginal community to know the pre-Hispanic past of the area. Tumbaya, in the central-south sector of Quebrada de Humahuaca, is a particular space since its environmental and geomorphological characteristics have allowed important interactions between the groups that inhabited the area and those of other regions, added to a social dynamic that gives a distinctive character to the sector. Within this framework, the landscapes that were configured in the central-south sector of Quebrada during the agricultural-ceramist period were studied, concerning its social identity and the links it may have had with other sectors of the circumpuneña area. The landscape approach, understood from a comprehensive perspective, allowed consideration of the natural, social and symbolic environment of the inhabitants of the area throughout its occupational history, including the materiality generated and manipulated to configure the landscape and define a particular identity. Thus, the landscape was conceived as a dynamic space, socially built by the daily activities, beliefs and value system of the social actors who carry out an act of memory that is constitutive of both their identity, their conception and legitimation of the territory.