A tethered hunting and mobility landscape in the Andean highlands of the Western Valleys, northern Chile

Abstract

Archaeological evidence suggests that the transition to food-producing economies in the Western Valleys of northern Chile led to a decline in foraging in highland areas around AD 650, yet colonial records from the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries attest to the continued existence of foraging groups. Taking the Camarones River Basin as a test case, this study identifies small-scale settlements and hunting installations in upland areas using remote-sensing data. In considering these new data alongside ethnohistorical accounts, the author proposes that foraging endured into the late colonial era, possibly coexisting with herder and agropastoral communities and precipitating tethered settlement patterns.