Weaving people and places: A long-term term perspective on obsidian circulation and social value in NW Argentina

Summary

The south-central Andes have a very rich record of long-distance circulation of things, animals, and people, the origins of which can be traced to the earliest hunting-gathering societies that occupied the territory ca 9600BP. We summarize the available information on obsidian circulation resulting from nearly three decades of research in the area, with a particular focus on the Calchaquí valleys area of north western Argentina (NWA) from early sedentary settlements until the Inca occupation.

Understanding "social landscapes" as deep-time regionalities—regional worlds of social experience built over the long-term—, we discuss the creative transformation of NW Argentina’s landscape in relationship to the transfer of raw materials and artifacts across the region since the beginnings of settled life. Combining geochemical, contextual and artifact analysis we propose that, while obsidian was generally used as raw material for everyday tools, it had varying performative social capacities across time and space. The physical properties and limited geographical availability of obsidian are indeed important to understand its social value, yet these are not seen as essential characteristics but rather as elements in a relational field of social, material and semiotic connections that both drew upon, as well as exceeded, subsistence practices and economic calculation.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Exotic, Lustrous, and Colorful: Obsidian in Symbol, Society, and Ceremony

Keywords

Spatial Coverage