Time Geography and GIS in the Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Agropastoral Circulation in the Northern Calchaquí Valley (Northwest Argentina, Southern Andes)

This article employs an ethnoarchaeological approach to mobility focusing on pastoral activities in the Andean region of the Northern Calchaquí Valley (Salta, Argentina). Recent research in the area presents archaeological evidence that supports the existence of lifeways based on integrated agropastoral activity strengthening at the start of the Late Period (around 1000 BP). These studies have identified a characteristic spatial pattern of agricultural and pastoral structures. This pattern consists of mixed assemblages of structures in areas near the piedmont and watercourses and monospecific aggregates of corrals on the higher slopes matching areas of naturally suitable grazing pastures. This evidence has generated interest towards understanding how everyday tasks, which involve the movement of people and animals, contributed to shaping this pattern. In providing an analytical framework for the study of the archaeological landscape, this article examines present-day mobility via an ethnographic approach, employing time geography methods for recording and coding pastoral circulation. This approach allowed us to observe how environmental and social variables influenced mobility strategies by which people coordinated their daily tasks involving agricultural and pastoral activities, as well as their seasonal variations. Based in this approach, several variables (environmental factors and restrictors related to land cover, slopes, altitude and hydrology) and parameters (space time requirements for activities) have been defined in order to perform GIS modelling of mobility (circuits and accessibility). Generated models allowed us to observe consistency between the temporal budgets involved in activities and the spatial patterns of related structures. By modelling hypothetical circuits empirically grounded in ethnographic work, the present article contributes to building an analytical framework for studying the archaeological landscape and agropastoral materiality in Andean valley environments of northwestern Argentina over the past millennium.