HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Environ. Archaeol.
Sec. Landscape and Geological Processes
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fearc.2025.1679633
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Land Use Dynamics in the Andes during the Late HoloceneView all 11 articles
Reconstructing pre-Columbian Agrarian Territorialities in the El Alto-Ancasti Mountain Range, Eastern NW Argentina
Provisionally accepted
Marcos Román Gastaldi1,2
Verónica Natalia Zuccarelli Freire3,4,5Lucas Gheco6,7Ana Soledad Meléndez6,8Sofía Ferreyra6Sofía Boscatto6Débora Egea6Melisa Rodríguez Oviedo1,2Antonela Nagel6Marcos N Quesada6,8
Patrick Roberts3,4,5*
Enrique Alejandro Moreno6*- 1Instituto de Antropología (IDACOR-CONICET), Córdoba, Argentina
- 2Museo de Antropologia, Córdoba, Argentina
- 3Max-Planck-Institut fur Geoanthropologie, Jena, Germany
- 4Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation, Jena, Germany
- 5isoTROPIC Research Group, Jena, Germany
- 6Instituto Regional de Estudios Socio-Culturales (IRES) CONICET - Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, Catamarca, Argentina
- 7Escuela de Arte y Patrimonio, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 8Escuela de Arqueología, Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, Catamarca, Argentina
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In this paper, we examine the formation of a village landscape during the first millennium CE in the eastern Andes of South America, specifically in El Alto-Ancasti mountain range, Catamarca, Argentina. This landscape was shaped through the articulation of domestic spaces—houses located in elevated areas—productive areas—agricultural terraces in adjacent ravines—and ritual spaces—a distinctive form of rock art—that together reflect a deep understanding of and engagement with the local environment. In doing so, we critically assess previous archaeological and historical narratives that have portrayed these populations as marginal or peripheral to the cultural developments centered in the western valleys. As an alternative, we propose a theoretical and methodological approach grounded in local dynamics, with a particular focus on patterns of land use during this period. Furthermore, our analysis highlights both significant similarities in village landscapes across different ecological zones and important variations within them. These conclusions are supported by results from extensive interdisciplinary field and laboratory research.
Keywords: land use, Domestic practices, Agrarian landscapes, Rock Art, local perspectives
Received: 04 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gastaldi, Zuccarelli Freire, Gheco, Meléndez, Ferreyra, Boscatto, Egea, Oviedo, Nagel, Quesada, Roberts and Moreno. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Patrick Roberts, roberts@gea.mpg.de
Enrique Alejandro Moreno, enalmor@gmail.com
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