From Village Communities to Curacazgos in Northwest Argentina

Abstract

In Prehispanic Northwest Argentina, the first archaeological evidence of Formative cultures (1000 BC-AD 1000) permits us to differentiate between areas of daily use and areas of funeral or ritual uses and between household patio-groups and mound compounds. During the first millennium AD, several modes of spatial structuration and of investment in the architectural landscape were in operation. They confer primacy to different material and symbolic means. At the end of the first millennium AD two structuration modes can be distinguished more clearly: one was founded in the control and manipulation of sacred resources and the other was founded in the control and concentration of socio-political resources of a secular order. Both distinctive principles operated as the means and resources of several social transformations. These modes produced diverse forms of hierarchically structured social spaces and of community architecture. Variations of these modes are illustrated by describing different archaeological sites and materials from the Santa María Valley and nearby areas. This analysis aims to understand social transformations from the first village communities to later ones.