Early peopling of the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, 18 years later

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 1" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT), an inland basin in the Atacama Desert’s lowlands, has become a focus for South American early peopling. Two pulses of increased rainfall in the highlands, between 18 and 9.5 ka cal BP, affected the desert’s hyperarid lowlands through runoff and elevated water tables. Excavations have uncovered six archaeological sites ranging from 12.8 – 11.2 ka cal BP. These sites present methodological and chronological challenges. All of them are deposited at or near the surface, due to the paucity of aggradation in the region during the Holocene. Geoarchaeological analyses allow us to understand their post-depositional history. Sites were deposited atop ≥Pleistocene surfaces- showing traces of the presence of water in an otherwise barren landscape (a B horizon or a floodplain) - and then covered by aeolian sands. Palimpsests are confined to the timespan of early peopling occupations. Artifacts are mixed by two processes: salt expansion and contraction and earthquakes. Since sites are deposited on stable surfaces often covered by a thin salt crust, deflation has not played an important role. Radiocarbon modeling indicates that the main occupation of the PdT occurred between 11.9 to 11.2 ka cal BP, and that older dates might correspond to subfossil wood.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50593