USING BINFORD’S FRAMES OF REFERENCE TO MODEL HUNTER-GATHERER MOBILITY AND GROUP SIZE IN THE ANDEAN PUNA
Author(s): Elizabeth Pintar; Amber Johnson; Sarah Lamkin
Year: 2016
Summary
Hunter-gatherer lifeways dominated the Salt Puna of South America for at least 5000 years before domesticated animals and plants appear in the archaeological record. The ruggedness of the landscape (with a baseline elevation of 3300 masl), the low ET and the distribution of resources dependent on a decreasing E-W rainfall gradient surely had an impact on prehistoric landscape use and mobility of ancient hunter-gatherers. In this poster we follow Binford (2001) in arguing there is a link between environmental variables and hunter-gatherer organization. We use world climatic data to calculate an environmental and hunter-gatherer frame of reference that allows us to create a set of expectations regarding past hunter-gatherers in this remote high-elevation desert. We specifically develop expectations for archaeological hunter-gatherer mobility in terms of number of residential camp moves per year and distance moved annually in residential moves, as well as group size and project these expected properties onto the Salt Puna. Finally, we compare these projections to a current model for hunter-gatherer mobility in the study area, to determine differences and incompatible properties.
Cite this Record
USING BINFORD’S FRAMES OF REFERENCE TO MODEL HUNTER-GATHERER MOBILITY AND GROUP SIZE IN THE ANDEAN PUNA. Elizabeth Pintar, Amber Johnson, Sarah Lamkin. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 403323)
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Keywords
Geographic Keywords
South America
Spatial Coverage
min long: -93.691; min lat: -56.945 ; max long: -31.113; max lat: 18.48 ;