Resumen

ASCHERO, Carlos Alberto  y  HOCSMAN, Salomón. ARCHAEOLOGY OF LATE MIDDLE HOLOCENE HUNTER-GATHERERS OF ANTOFAGASTA DE LA SIERRA (SOUTHERN ARGENTINEAN PUNA). Chungará (Arica) [online]. 2011, vol.43, n.especial, pp. 393-411. ISSN 0717-7356.  doi: 10.4067/S0717-73562011000300005.

A characterization of last hunter-gatherer occupations at Antofagasta de la Sierra (Southern Argentinean Puna) is presented (ca. 5,500-3,000 years BP). Different lines of evidence are considered: technofactures, rock art, residential mobility, territoriality, wild and domesticated animal and plant resources exploitation and non local biotic and abiotic resource procurement. It is highlighted that at this moment important socio-economic changes related to the emergence of productive activities occurred in the study area. We consider that such changes took place inside of local hunter-gatherer groups and from the sum of interactions with similar subsistence groups and that they were not owed to transformer stimulus from "nuclear areas". Besides, the local archaeological sequence studied is compared to contemporaneous information from Northern Argentinean Puna and desert of Chile. The goal is to board the variability in processes from different areas and possible relationships within them.

Palabras clave : Hunter-gatherers; initial productive activities; Middle/Late Holocene; Argentinean Puna.