Abstract

SCATTOLIN, María Cristina. The calchaquí ancestors: a Zavaleta Collection view. Cuad. Fac. Humanid. Cienc. Soc., Univ. Nac. Jujuy [online]. 2003, n.20, pp.51-79. ISSN 1668-8104.

In Santa María valley there exists an unbalance between the knowledge on societies prior to Spanish conquest, those people to whom it was even attributed a name - "Calchaquíes" - and the villages societies prior to them. It is proposed that the current archaeological knowledge of the societies of Northwestern Argentina has been affected by the collecting of archaeological objects by pot-hunters and other collectors between the end of XIXth century and the beginnings of XXth's. Some of their negative effects have been difficult to correct. One of them is the scarce knowledge of the material culture of the first millennium A. D. In this paper a series of objects of northern Santa María valley are considered: the collection that Manuel Zavaleta sold to the Field Museum of Chicago. The analysis of a hundred of these pieces suggests that local populations at the valley had access to a stylistic universe partially shared with populations of Eastern Forests and Calchaquí valley. Such stylistic universe was used in their own manufactures and this fact has not been adequately investigated yet. Though the results are yet preliminary, our objective is to offer elements about the representations distribution during the first millennium A.D., and to contribute to current discussion of symbolic legitimation in the territoryof Santa María valley and beyond.

Keywords : Stylistic universe; Regional Formative; Symbolic legitimation.

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