Agriculture, communities and the landscape in the prehispanic period in the highlands of the Atacama Desert (Rio Salado, Northern Chile)

24th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA)

Barcelona. España
Congreso. 2018

The Atacama Desert, allegedly the driest place on earth, has been historically an area with a very low density of human settlement, basically due to the extreme environmental conditions (aridity, altitude). Despite that, human communities, both in the past and in the present, have been able to settle and live there, and to develop surprisingly (for us) complex and efficient productive systems based on irrigated agriculture. The Late Intermediate Period (ca. 900-1400 d.C.) witnessed the development of complex social systems based on the aggregation of population in enclosed settlements and the construction of large compounds of irrigated cultivation terraces. The area was later conquered by the Inkas and became part of the Tawantinsuyu. Inka conquest has been traditionally considered military in nature and driven by an economic purpose, although those ideas are being re-assessed today.

In this paper we will explore some questions related to that archaeological context, drawing from the work we have been developing in the last 7 years in the sites of Topain, Paniri and Turi, in the area of the Salado River. We will combine the archaeological data collected and the rich ethnographic information available in the area to discuss some issues about the possible forms of production and social life in the prehispanic period in that area.