“Is people easy to move somewhere else: Diversity in the late pre-hispanic subsistence and mobility strategies (Sierras of Cordoba, Argentina).

Abstract

The archaeological study of Sierras of Córdoba Late Pre-Hispanic Period (1100-360 BP, Argentina) assumed during decades that the development of agriculture led to the sudden dependence of crops –mainly maize (Zea mays)– and to the sedentary way of life in pit-house villages. The current information questions this assumption by suggesting that the late pre-Hispanic peoples showed flexible subsistence and mobility patterns where the strategies were switched according to seasonal wild resource availability. Thus, farming was one component in a mixed foraging and cultivation economy where wild animals and plants were intensively exploited. The wide economic niche was accompanied by high residential mobility, co-residential group fission-fusion mechanism and the seasonal switch from farming to foraging wild resources. The model presents an archaeological example where the introduction of crops was followed by a flexible subsistence pattern and not by a full-time farming economy, which serves as a potential comparison to other cases in the world during the food producing transition.