The village landscape setting in Anillaco (La Rioja, Argentina) during the first millennium AD

Abstract

In this paper, the social dynamics of village communities in northeast Sierra de Velasco are addressed from a multi-scalar spatial perspective that is regional, locational, and long term. To determine the settlement pattern and different layers of the village landscape, a broad socio-temporal perspective was taken of a micro-regional analysis of Anillaco during the first millennium C.E. We designed a systematic pedestrian survey plan, with the data obtained processed through Geographic Informatics System (GIS) and other statistical tools, enabling a close examination of local socio-economic trends. A socio-spatial occupation model of increasing complexity is proposed, which departs from the configuration of residential structures at the domestic scale for the period A.D. 280 - 660 that were dispersed among cultivation fields. Around A.D. 680 a population concentration can be found in communal architectural spaces with a later extension of village life up to A.D. 890 in protected sectors such as gorges, at which point foothill occupation declined and village life lost its structure.