Quebrada de Los Corrales (El Infiernillo, Tucumán, Argentina) is located above 3,000 masl in northern sector of Sierras del Aconquija. The research carried out so far allowed the identification of diverse types of archaeological evidence corresponding to different moments of human occupation which began in the Middle Holocene (ca. 7,800-600 BP). This long occupational sequence of about 7,000 years makes Quebrada de Los Corrales a good starting point for reflecting on diverse pre-Hispanic processes that occurred in the Argentinean northwest from the early occupations to the establishment of an important agro-pastoral village during the first millennium of the Christian era. In this paper, we present a series of pieces of evidences corresponding to the period of transition from a hunter-gatherer way of life to an agro-pastoral one, which occurred-on a macro-regional scale-between ca. 4,000 and 2,000 years BP. We evaluated the possibilities of the occurrence of a local transitional process.

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Salomón Hocsman and María del Pilar Babot

In this article, we develop the content and scope of the notion of transition to food production (TFP) and use it to understand the transition from hunter-gatherers to agro-pastoralist societies in Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the southern Puna of Argentina. We particulary focus on, issues related to culinary practices, the settlement / emplacement of residential sites, and the emergence of identities, with special reference to the period between 5,000 and 3,000 cal. BP (4,500-3,000 BP). We also refer to the previous and subsequent moments in the local continuum. To do that, we integrate and review the existing data for the area from the archaeological analysis of the social production, reproduction and transformation during the node of the transition, approaching it from the perspective of practices and agency.

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Marcela Sepúlveda, Luis Cornejo, Daniela Osorio, Mauricio Uribe, Carolina Llanos and Camila Castillo

A set of dates, from a summary of excavations and of analyses of associated material from the upper basin of the Azapa valley, around the Tignamar River (2,800 and 3,800 masl), allows us to discuss the occurrence of socio-cultural processes, between cal. 1,500 BC-650 AD, in the Precordillera (foothills) of the far north of Chile. Defined in general based on references from other developmental nuclei, such as the coastal valleys or the high plateau, the local Formative is evaluated and discussed in light of the data obtained from three archaeological locations: Pampa El Muerto, Pampa Oxaya and Mullipungo. We suggest the continuity of mobile groups with a hunting-gathering way of life, who would have progressively incorporated ceramics and the management of animal resources, as evidenced by rock art. Consequently, the existence of a particular local historical trajectory during the Formative times is proposed for the Precordillera of Arica, in the South-Central Andes.

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