“OBJETOS PERFORADOS”, ASOCIACIONES SIMBOLICAS Y REDES DE CIRCULACIÓN: REFLEXIONES SOBRE LAS FORMAS DE INTERCAMBIO EN EL PERIODO FORMATIVO (1500 AC-500 DC) DEL DESIERTO DE ATACAMA, NORTE DE CHILE

Abstract

Los objetos perforados son parte de los elementos que dan cuenta de actividades de intercambio en el Desierto de Atacama, y de manera más extendida en el área Centro-Sur Andina. Esto se evidencia en que las materias primas que le dan soporte a dichos objetos provienen de regiones diversas y distantes a los contextos donde han sido halladas. Siguiendo un análisis tipológico centrado en aspectos morfo-funcionales y la identificación de materias primas de conjuntos de objetos perforados provenientes de diferentes sitios del periodo Formativo (1500 AC-500 DC) ubicados en las áreas de Quillagua (Calate CH-2 y CH-3), Loa Medio (Talabre 26, Chorrillos, Topater) y Salar de Atacama (Tulán 54), se ha constatado que la mayoría han sido fabricadas en conchas de la costa Pacífica y el Noroeste argentino (NOA), seguidas de piezas de mineral de cobre obtenidas de fuentes locales. Estos lugares de origen, algunos bastante lejanos, nos permiten plantear hipótesis y reflexiones respecto a las formas en las que los objetos perforados fueron intercambiados considerando su estatus simbólico y social en sus contextos de depositación. Se piensa que esto constituye un avance en la evaluación de cómo estos objetos contribuyeron a construir y negociar identidades incorporadas en los cuerpos y extendidas en el paisaje y en el territorio.Palabras claves: objetos perforados, cuentas de collar, intercambio, periodo Formativo, Desierto de Atacama.Perforated objects are part of the elements that illustrate the exchange activities in the Atacama Desert, and in the South-Central Andes area more widely. This can be noted in the raw materials that support those objects and which come from diverse regions, far from the contexts where they have been found. Through a typological analysis focused on the morphofunctional aspects and on the identifcation of raw materials of sets of perforated objects from different sites of the Formative period (1500 BC-500 AC) in the areas of Quillagua (Calate CH-2 y CH-3), Loa Medio (Talabre 26, Chorrillos, Topater) and Salar de Atacama (Tulan 54), it has been verified that most of them were manufactured in shells from the Pacific coast and the Argentine Northwest (ANW), followed by copper ore pieces obtained from local sources. These places of origin, some of them very far from the sites, allow us to hypothesize and reflect on the ways the perforated objects were exchanged, considering their symbolic and social status in their deposit contexts. It is believed that this constitutes an advancement in the evaluation of the way these objects contribute to the construction and negotiation of embodied identities that also extend into the landscape and the territory.

Middle through late Holocene long-distance transport of exotic shell personal adornments in Central West Patagonia (southern South America). The archaeomalacological assemblage of Baño Nuevo 1

“…However, there is no consensus about the meaning and reaches of this concept [101]. In the archaeological and anthropological literature, this term has been often associated with elite goods, status goods, valuable objects or with the wealth of the person or group owning them [12,102]. In this framework, we consider that the presence of this type of shell ornaments in the context of highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups of Central West Patagonia does not in itself demonstrate the existence of status or social differences, the same as it is not related to obtaining subsistence resources.…”