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This article presents 24 radiocarbon dates of different materials (animal and human bones, charcoal, and pottery) recovered from hunter-gatherer-fisher archaeological sites from the Salado River microregion, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. We used a microregional design strategy, and considered the 14C dates as a group to analyze them with Bayesian statistics. This was essential to the analysis of the chronology of these shallow sites, in which the soil dynamics add the archaeological materials into the A horizon sedimentary matrix. In these types of sites, the occupational events are difficult to identify, so archaeological indicators are needed to assess the temporal contexts.

The region of the Central and South Andes was, in about the ninth and 15th centuries AD, the stage for the development of political systems tending towards demographic centralization in villages with defensive structures, known as Pucará. The chronological accuracy for these phenomena still remains uncertain, mainly because it involves intervals of long and superimposed occupations, masked by the Inca domination. Thus, this paper analyses the history of the occupation at Pucará de Tilcara, one of the biggest populated centres of the Humahuaca Gorge (Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina). Twenty-five radiocarbon dates are critically evaluated to judge its reliability. The Bayesian statistics show that all the dated spaces were used on a long-term basis. The most ancient signs are in the middens and relate at least to the 10th century AD, and the occupation of the housing areas could be calculated to the 13th and 16th centuries. A phase of higher intensity of occupation is observed during the Inca period. This redefinition of this site occupation shows the need to statistically analyse the dates in order to differentiate the phases of occupation.

Humans have engineered their environments throughout the Holocene, especially in the construction of hydraulic infrastructure. In many regions, however, this infrastructure is difficult to date, including the vestiges of water-management systems in the Andean highlands. Focusing on silt reservoirs in the upper Ica drainage, Peru, the authors use cores and radiocarbon dates to demonstrate the pre-Hispanic construction of walls to enhance and expand wetlands for camelid pasture. Interventions dated to the Inca period (AD 1400–1532) indicate an intensification of investment in hydraulic infrastructure to expand production capacity in support of the state. The results are discussed in the context of the hydraulic strategies of other states and empires.

In this article we highlight the relevance of a combination of a participatory mapping approach and unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry as complementary techniques for landscape archaeology studies. We exemplify this approach with the discovery and mapping of the Cerro Quemado site, located in the Yocavil valley in north‐western Argentina. The site presents a local Inka architecture pattern corresponding to an administrative centre type settlement of the southern provinces of the empire and is placed closely to one of the main routes of the Inka road that runs through the bottom of the valley. The implications of this finding are substantive in terms of a more complete understanding of the expansion of the Inkas in this region. The finding of Cerro Quemado has been possible thanks to the local spatial knowledge registered by the implementation of a participatory mapping approach with students and teachers of a local high school. Its expedited registration and the preliminary map of the structures presented here was facilitated by drone technology and spatial photogrammetry that helped to define in a cost efficient and quick way its architectural pattern.

This study argues that to properly set the duration of a particular pottery style using radiocarbon it is necessary to have a long series of data, but also to critically evaluate its reliability. This study presents a methodological strategy to establish the temporal position of the Famabalasto Negro Grabado (Famabalasto Black Incised) pottery style, which has a problematic chronological allocation in northwest Argentine archaeology. This article considers as a starting point the different hypotheses referring to the chronology of this ceramic style. All available 14 C dates and the information of the archaeological contexts were used to evaluate the different degrees of certainty in the sample-event association and differentiate the association degrees among the dated events and the set of recovered ceramics. For this, a quadripartite scale of date-pottery association is proposed. This treatment of the information allows to rank the more reliable data. Anomalous data are detected and discussed, and as a result, the period of production of this style at a regional level can be dated to the early 14th century and mid-16th/early 17th century. This analysis presents a methodology that can be applied to different archaeological situations.

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ResumenConsiderando como punto de partida las diferentes hipótesis referidas a la temporalidad de la alfarería estilo Famabalasto Negro Grabado del Noroeste Argentino, se evalúan un total de 47 fechados radiocarbónicos en sitios de los valles Calchaquí, Hualfín, Andalgalá y -principalmenteYocavil, con el propósito de ajustar la cronología de este particular estilo alfarero. El análisis contextual crítico propuesto considera los niveles de asociación entre la muestra orgánica fechada y el evento a datar y también los niveles de asociación entre el evento datado y el conjunto cerámico espacialmente vinculado, a la luz de la información disponible.Tomando en cuenta solamente los datos radiocarbónicos con buen nivel de asociación a cerámicas de estilo Famabalasto Negro Grabado, se propone ubicar el lapso de su producción a nivel regional hacia los inicios del siglo XIV y mediados del siglo XVI.Palabras claves: fechados radiocarbónicos -valle de YocavilNoroeste Argentino.Abstract Considering as a starting point the different hypothesis referred to the temporality of the Famabalasto Negro Grabado pottery from the Argentinean Northwest, a total of 47 radiocarbon dates from the Calchaquí, Hualfín, Andalgalá and -principally-Yocavil valleys are evaluated with the goal of adjusting the chronology of this particular pottery style. The critical contextual analysis proposed considers the association levels between the dated organic sample and the event to be dated, and also the levels of association between the dated event and the pottery associated to it. Taking into account only the radiocarbon data with good levels of association to the Famabalasto Negro Grabado pottery style, we propose to locate the period of its production to a regional level between the beginnings of the 14th century to the mid of the 16th century. D IntroducciónEn tanto producciones artísticas conforme modelos o patrones estéticos, efectuadas por personas, grupos o sociedades que están histórica y espacialmente situados, los estilos alfareros arqueológicos se reconocen -y luego se definen en sus múltiples características-en base a regularidades en las formas, los materiales, las técnicas y los diseños (Alcina Franch 1982). Esta identificación a partir de regularidades, que está en la base de la definición de estilo, no excluye el carácter inconstante, móvil y dinámi-co de los mismos, en cuyas entidades y transformaciones buscamos e indagamos aquellos elementos que nos permitan acercarnos al conocimiento de distintos aspectos de la organización social, la economía, la política y las ideologías que caracterizaron a las antiguas formaciones sociales que los produjeron.La definición de estilos cerámicos y su ubicación en el espacio y el tiempo, elementos necesarios para la elaboración de secuencias arqueológicas regionales, es un tema en el que se ha avanzado de modo progresivo, aunque con interrupciones que llegaron a durar décadas, desde los inicios de la práctica arqueológica en el Noroeste Argentino. A partir de la década del 50 y hasta mediados del...