The importance of interdisciplinarity for the study of pre- and post-Hispanic interaction processes in La Cueva gorge, Humahuaca, Jujuy

Abstract

The presentation addresses the importance that the interdisciplinary work between Archaeology, History, Biology and Paleontology had and has for the study of interaction, mobility or circulation in the ravine of La Cueva (located in the department of Humahuaca, province of Jujuy), both in pre-Hispanic and post-Hispanic times. The possibility of working for more than a decade with a team whose researchers come from different fields, has allowed the approach of multiple social processes that took place in this ravine, but on this occasion we will focus on the study of mobility/interaction/circulation. This is an archaeological and historical space that, due to its strategic location (a transition between the ravine and the puna), has witnessed the mobility of people and objects since at least the Formative Period, passing through the Regional Development Period and the Inca Period, as well as the Colonial Period and the Wars of Independence until the present day. We are talking about a circulation that is reflected in various objects studied by archaeology (such as ceramics and lithic, fundamentally), as well as materials investigated by paleontology, such as a Jurassic mollusk fossil. To this is added the interaction of human beings whose mortal remains are currently found in archaeological sites in the ravine and which are analyzed by Biology through ancient DNA, as well as the circulation of populations from the remote and recent past, which History studies through documents and diverse cartography. The work will show the scope and value of an interdisciplinary research for the approach of archaeological and historical problems of a sector of Northwest Argentina.