Transhumantic grazing in the Puna de Atacama - Chile

University of Chile??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Chair: Seminar of Ethnoarchaeology.

Faculty of Social Sciences?????????????????????????????? ???????????? Teacher : Victoria Castro R.

School of Social Sciences???????????????????????????????? ????????????? Student : Ulises Cárdenas H.

Anthropology Degree.

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TRANSHUMANT GRAZING IN THE ATACAMA PUNA

A VIEW FROM ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY

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The mobility of populations settled in the vicinity of the Salar de Atacama basin is a phenomenon that has been developed for more than 10,000 years, according to some research (Nu?ez, 1992b), and that is framed in the origin of man's interaction with the surrounding environment.? This unique phenomenon dates back to the Early Archaic period (9,000-7,500 B.C.), a time in which the hunters of the salty puna were forced to articulate restricted mobility circuits (initial transhumance) that made it possible to manage resources from the high puna, altiplano and oases and lagoons located on the western edge of the Andes (Nu?ez and Dillehay,? 1978; Nu?ez, 1980; Nu?ez & Santoro, 1988; Nu?ez, 1992a, 1992b) in an environmental context characterized by successive climatic changes (Messerli et al., 1993).

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Already at the beginning of the century, the phenomenon in question attracted the attention of some researchers. Uhle (1913), analyzing the materials excavated in Calama, from a historical-cultural perspective, proposed the great mobility articulated by the Atacame?o population to various areas (Arica, Bolivia, Argentine provinces), limiting himself to pointing out that this phenomenon was the product of the constant traffic of llamas existing in the sector (op. cit:106), without elaborating in this way an explanatory model of such a phenomenon that will integrate variables as important as ideology and/or environment. On the other hand, and from an empiricist point of view, Ricardo Latcham (1938) pointed out that the Atacame?os, although they had a great agricultural orientation, was complemented by a strong livestock tradition, which, thanks to the use of the llama as a load, had turned them into great traffickers and traders, helping them in parallel in their various migrations and conquests (op.cit:110). This author also highlighted the strong interaction articulated by the Atacame?o populations settled both on the coast and in the interior as a result of the trafficking of certain local products (e.g. dried fish and shellfish). In this context, one of the main shortcomings of these studies was the explanatory role that these authors gave to dissemination, thus ignoring the complex social and cultural processes underlying the subject in question.

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In the middle of this century, the conception of the mobility of these populations changed radically, as a result of the adoption of new theoretical frameworks mostly from North America. In this sense, Schaedel (1957), although he did not ignore the usefulness of the historical-cultural approach, complemented it with the contributions from American archaeology and anthropology. Based on the research of other authors (v.gr . Uhle, Latcham, Bird, Bennet), this author tried to clarify the cultural development frameworks proposed by them, postulating the existence of three ecologically and culturally distinct zones – the extreme north agricultural zone; maritime zone; Atacame?o desert zone (Schaedel, 1957:30). The latter, in the author's opinion, had conditioned due to its geographical and environmental characteristics, an accelerated development of mobility and greater flexibility in subsistence systems. The fact of integrating ecological, geographical, and environmental variables into a given explanatory framework was one of Schaedel's greatest contributions to the analysis and interpretation of the archaeological record, a phenomenon that laid the foundations for the articulation of a series of concepts and models that would later attempt to explain the phenomenon under discussion.

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In relation to the above, we must point out that the study of the subject in question experienced strong progress at the end of the sixties, since various researchers, using resources from other disciplines (ethnohistory, geography, ecology), understood the importance of ecological complementarity in relation to the mobility patterns articulated by Andean societies. In this sense, Lynch's research in the Callejón de Huaylas, Peru, demonstrated the adoption by pre-ceramic hunter-gatherer populations of an effective seasonal mobility system (transhumance), which allowed the exploitation of a series of resources located in different ecological levels (Lynch, 1975). On the other hand, the re-readings made of ethnohistorical documents emphasized the gravitating role of ecological complementarity in the articulation of particular patterns of settlement and mobility. Murra (1975), in proposing the model of the "archipelagos", highlighted the importance for the economy of the highland kingdoms (v.gr . Lupaqa) of the vertical control of a maximum of ecological levels, a control that implied the exploitation of different ecological niches by colonies that did not lose their political rights within their original ethnic group. Although this strategy of space occupation is more characteristic of the cultural dynamics of the central Andes and some sectors of the south-central Andean area, it is not in our opinion the main adaptive response adopted by the communities of our study area. In this context, the explanatory model of "revolving mobility" proposed by Nú?ez and Dillehay (1978) constitutes an analytical effort to try to explain the economic and demographic modalities together with the mobility patterns articulated by south-central Andean societies. This model, roughly speaking, proposes an explanation focused on fixed mobility routes by pastoral-caravanning societies, in a similar way to a spiral between two or more settlements-axes that offered for exchange, through fairs, various resources from each ecological zone. According to the creators of this model, each circuit had mobile and immobile sectors (caravans and sedentary settlements), which stood out for their complementarity and belonged to the same society (Nu?ez and Dillehay, 1978). Situated in this frame of reference and considering the topographical, ecological and environmental characteristics of the area under study (v.gr . marked high altitudinal importance) we realize that ecological complementarity has been the main motivation for the perpetuation of the regional transhumance systems present since the Archaic period and that can still be observed in particular pastoral communities,? among them, Talabre.

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As we mentioned earlier, since the times of Boman, Uhle and Latcham, the dynamic capacity of the so-called Atacame?o peoples had been recognized, especially in terms of the caravan articulated by this population. In this context, the articulation of llama caravans constituted an effective adaptive cultural response in the multi-ecological perception of the production of the coast-altiplano profile. In relation to this, and paraphrasing Nu?ez (1976), it can be suggested that during the pre-Hispanic period there was an intense redistribution of surpluses from the coast and the agrarian and agricultural centers located in the highlands, a phenomenon that through a long process of specialization of the transport of goods (llama herds), was able to transform the apparent ecological limitations (op.cit:183) and that caused the convergence of routes coming from different and distant places.? constituting our area of study in a true "nerve center of interregional traffic" (Berenguer, 1984:18). In this way, the importance acquired by the development of the cattle ranching of llamos was reflected in a context of multiple relations of exchange that took place between the Indians from Lipez, Tarapacá, northwestern Argentina and Atacame?os through the movement and mobility of the caravans, a phenomenon in turn inscribed in a complex network of routes and circuits that formed a true ethnic mosaic (Nu?ez and Dillehay,? 1978; Sanhueza, 1992a), and which allowed the subsequent articulation of the shepherds of the salty puna to the European mercantile economy through the herding of mule cattle, despite the revolutionary change produced by the incorporation of mules (Sanhueza, 1992b).

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On the other hand, and taking some of the postulates of the models of ecological complementarity, some authors proposed that the processes of dispersion and mobility that occurred at the end of the seventeenth century in Atacama, although they may have originated in the particular monetarist economic pressure of the time, preserved many remnants of the pre-Hispanic Andean tradition (Hidalgo,? 1985:162). This postulate was supported by ethnohistorical data, as well as ethnographic and archaeological information that postulated the existence of systems of complementarity. In this sense, the background provided by Bowman (1924) complemented the previous postulate, since this author pointed out that one of the distinctive characteristics of the populations of the sector was the fact of having two residences, one in the mountains and the other in the plains below (op.cit:266), thus articulating a system of "double domicile" in a pattern that combined agriculture,? livestock and transhumance. One of the main successes of these studies was the fact of demonstrating, from the analysis of ethnohistorical documentation and ethnographic information, the existence of deep cultural continuities in terms of the patterns of mobility and settlement adopted by the populations settled in the Salar de Atacama basin.

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Located in the circumpune?a area subarea, we can point out that the studies carried out on the mobility articulated by pastoralism are very scarce, highlighting the contributions made by Serracino et al. (1975), Cipolleti (1984), Folla (1989), Castro (1996) and Morales (1996), undertaken under the perspective of cultural anthropology where topics such as economic systems,? occupation and use of space, and technological strategies involved in grazing activity respectively. Although these investigations have been carried out from particular perspectives of analysis, they do not solve the problem that we see in the area and that translates into the little attention that this subsistence strategy -seasonal grazing- has received, from a perspective that integrates both the contributions of ethnography and archaeology, commonly called ethnoarchaeology.

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Until recently, in the south-central Andean area, there were very few approaches to the phenomenon of pastoralism from an ethnoarchaeological perspective, a situation that has only recently begun to change. In this regard, the studies carried out in the puna of Jujuy, Argentina, by Yacobaccio et al. (1996; 1998), as well as those carried out by Villaseca (1998) in the north of Chile, stand out. Although the interests in each of these studies have been similar – identifying the current processes that can generate the development and formation of the archaeological record in pastoral sites – the contributions that they have made to the understanding of the cultural systems of the past can be described as complementary.? Yacobaccio et al. have focused their research on the grazing activities carried out by the inhabitants of Susques, placing special emphasis on the analysis of such activity from a zooarchaeological point of view, without ignoring issues such as the use of space, settlement patterns and livestock management and exploitation. Villaseca, on the other hand, limited his study to the subregion of the upper Loa (II Region), specifically in the area called Santa Bárbara, which had various evidences of pastoral occupation reflected in sites of pre-Hispanic, historical, sub-current and contemporary occupation. An aspect not problematized by Yacobaccio et al. and which constitutes one of Villaseca's greatest contributions is the fact of integrating ceremonialism and the rituality underlying the activity of pastoralism, as areas that can provide a wealth of information in favor of the reading of the archaeological record, and especially that generated by pastoral activities.

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On the other hand, these studies have not ignored a series of variables that participate in pastoral mobility, thus identifying both the external and internal factors that condition the articulation of this peculiar subsistence strategy -climate, livestock mass, pastures, social organization, ritual cycles, relationship with farmers, etc.-. In relation to this, the research carried out by Haber (1988) in the Department of Antofagasta de la Sierra, Argentina, stands out, which, based on a working hypothesis that points out the relationship between types of forage and grazing strategies, manages to propose models of occupation of space by pastoral groups based on the potential of the existing forage resources in the sector. Close to our area of study, the model of pastoral mobility for forage proposed by Gundermann (1984), although it characterizes the existing situation in the Aymara communities of Region I, presents a series of limitations when applied to the reality of Region II, especially in the Salar de Atacama basin. The geomorphological and ecological characteristics of both sectors articulate particular and distinctive patterns of interecological mobility, since in the area under study, archaeological evidence indicates for the Salada Puna the development of a stricter transhumant pattern than the possible cases of the dry puna (Nu?ez and Santoro, 1988:15). In this sense, it should be noted that the study of the floristic composition of the ecological units and floors located in the study area, although it is in its initial stages (Cárdenas, 1999), must be complemented with geographical, ecological and environmental information of the sector, in order to broaden the perspectives of analysis that will be used in the development of the research.

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Finally, it should be noted that the research that has addressed the issue of religiosity inherent in the development of this subsistence strategy (Flores, 1975; Mamani, 1988-1989; Galdames, 1990 and Merlino and Rabey, 1983), have not explicitly considered the role that this aspect must have played in the process of formation of the pastoral material record, a situation that has changed in recent times with the studies carried out with the current Altoloa ranchers of Region II (Villaseca, 1998:163). It is expected to complement this perspective of analysis with the ethnographic data obtained in the study area since these will allow us to problematize questions such as the degree of annual variation that the transhumance circuit presents as a function of cultural factors, the relationship of this variation with the settlement pattern, and the possible identification of pastoral sites and their differentiation from those of an archaic nature.? elements that together constitute some of the guidelines that will articulate our treatment of the problem.

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