Science and Technology Production

Taming the control of chronology in ancient agricultural structures. Non traditional data sets

Article

Authorship:

KORSTANJE, MARIA ALEJANDRA ; Cuenya, Patricia ; Williams, Verónica

Date:

2008

Publishing House and Editing Place:

Academic Press

Magazine:

JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE Academic Press

Summary *

The absolute chronology of the agricultural soil from organic matter has always been difficult to measure due to several reasons. In our work on the prehispanic agriculture, however, an absolute chronology is necessary to distinguish the incaic prevalence of the previous agricultural structure. Instead of looking for a new dating methodology, we have used the 14C method trying to eliminate the error sources typical of soils. Thus, we have dated new types of agricultural structures, with the assumption that they would have worked as archaeological “seals”. In the present paper we show that the dating of the beginning of the use of the prehispanic agricultural systems, on an archaeological sample of Calchaqui Valley - Argentina, has been successful. Information provided by the agent in SIGEVA