Household and sacred landscapes among Holocene hunter-gatherers of Patagonia's Central Plateau, Argentina

Abstract

The construction of social landscapes by middle Holocene hunter-gatherers in Patagonia is inferred from the integration of spatial patterning in the selection and circulation of rocks/minerals, the distribution of rock art, camp sites and the relationship between landforms and archaeological sites. These observations allow us to suggest that environmental factors were not the only reason for behavioural changes taking place among southern Patagonian hunter-gatherers at this time. Several changes in the spatial patterning of settlements and resource use were recorded in the Central Plateau by our team, and by colleagues in other adjacent regions, that cannot be attributed wholly to climate change. Archaeological signals of changing human settlement patterns strengthen by the end of the middle Holocene and the beginning of the late Holocene. The central idea presented is that domestic and sacred spaces were not exclusive because minerals, rocks, fresh water sources, landforms, plants, animals, and landscape...