Marks on the floor. Instant and memory in the foundation of an agro-pastoralist place in the Puna high desert, Northwest Argentina (ca. 1500 BP)

Abstract

A set of visual representations and marks made on the red plastered floor within a domestic enclosure, are analyzed. They belong to low scale agro-pastoralist societies that inhabited the Argentine Puna in the South Central Andes, ca. 1500 BP. The prepared floor would have configured a proper surface for a multisensory ritual performance. This type of material is reserved for specific places such as graves and offering deposits in the study area. The drawn visual representations are interpreted as to lineage emblems and, due to restricted visual access, they would pertain to the private sphere and therefore, would be aimed at communication within the social group. They are analyzed within the framework of ritual archaeology and feasting to propose that they could be part of the ritualization of the domestic place as an ordering element of the social group, and as a way of claiming the family territory. Shortly after its complex ritual closure, the enclosure was used for the confinement of Camelidae livestock. The ritual performance and the subsequent story of the enclosure in productive practices would have been significant actions in a context of environmental deterioration that could have affected the availability of fertile spaces in the region.