干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

OCCUPATIONS OF ANCIENT WETLAND ENVIRONMENTS IN THE LOWLANDS OF NORTHERN MENDOZA: TULUMAYA SITE. Research carried out at Tulumaya site (PA70) aimed to study the characteristics of subsistence-settlement systems in an area of dry lowlands in northeast Mendoza, an area particularly sensitive to environmental fluctuations during the Late Holocene. Evidence was recovered by archaeological excavations and surface collection, showing an occupational continuity between 1600 and 300 BP. Results of ceramic analysis show periods of use, which was corroborated by a radiocarbon dating. Through the analysis of lithic production systems it is proposed that the site be integrated regionally with other environments (e. g., Precordillera), insofar as the tools recovered enable possible activities to be inferred. Archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence suggest information about subsistence in an arid environment where variation in water availability was recorded. This archeological information is analyzed in conjunction with documental data that identify hunter-gatherer groups not under direct colonial domination living in the zone in the sixteenth century.