Under the supervision of Dr. Robert Bettinger, Raven Garvey will perform a regional archaeological survey in southern Mendoza Province, Argentina. The survey is designed to address a puzzling four thousand year gap in the record of human occupation in Mendoza. Climate scientists have shown that this same four thousand year period, referred to as the middle Holocene (between 8000 and 4000 years ago), was a time of hotter, drier conditions in a number of regions worldwide. Indigenous populations living in areas affected by these large-scale environmental fluctuations were undoubtedly impacted by the resultant changes in resource availability. The apparent break in the Mendoza record implies that the people living there were either incapable of adapting to a deteriorating environment and largely abandoned the region, or that they responded to it in ways that made them less visible archaeologically, giving the misimpression of abandonment. Interpretations of similar gaps observed in middle Holocene archaeological records elsewhere in the world remain controversial due to precisely these alternative possibilities. In Mendoza, there are simply too few data available to interpret the observed gap. This survey will sample a broader range of environment types than have been sampled previously to distinguish natural from behavioral factors contributing to the break in the record.
Mendoza is a particularly effective "laboratory" for a study of this kind because the region is geographically and climatically comparable to the Great Basin of North America where an analogous middle Holocene gap has been documented. A comparative study of these two regions allows environmental setting to be held relatively constant while complex responses to resource fluctuations are teased apart. Understanding behavioral responses to major climatic events in Argentina will clarify larger trajectories of hunter-gatherer adaptive change that are relevant to many regions worldwide. Moreover, a deeper appreciation of prehistoric problem-solving strategies contributes to an understanding of the rise of modern humans.
In addition to its contributions to empirical and theoretical issues in anthropology, this project will have broader impacts for both the intellectual and the local host communities. Close consultation among interdisciplinary scientists from US and Argentine institutions will result in both mutual intellectual benefit and a healthy collaborative relationship between international researchers. Furthermore, field technicians for this project will be recruited from Argentine universities, providing students of archaeology the opportunity for field experience and training. Finally, the results of this project will be shared with the host community through a formal display at a local museum, a mock archaeological dig, open to public participation, and a series of age-appropriate classroom presentations designed to generate both excitement about archaeology and a sense of stewardship towards cultural heritage.
This award has been jointly funded by NSF's Archaeology Program and Office of International Science and Engineering.
