Read down for an insight into Argentina's prehistoric period.
Earliest Origins
The first peoples crossed the temporary land bridge spanning Asia and America and the
Bering Strait between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, and began a long migration southwards,
reaching South America about 30,000 years ago and Tierra del Fuego around 12,000 years ago.
Hunters and foragers, they followed in the path of huge herds of now extinct animals such as
mammoths, giant ground sloths, mastodons and wild horses, adapting to fishing along the
Chilean coasts. In the northeast of Argentina, these peoples adopted a more sedentary
lifestyle, pausing in their semi-nomadic travels long enough to plant and harvest crops of
maize and manioc, and domesticating animals.
Northwest Argentina
Argentina has a rich history of pre-Hispanic indigenous civilizations, with the most important
archaeological sites situated in the northwest and west areas of the most highly developed
cultures south of the central Andes. Along a migratory path which followed the Andes, this
region became a meeting place for established settlers from northern Chile, the central Andes,
the Chaco and the hunter-gatherers of the south. Cave paintings and petroglyphs engraved on
rocks remain from 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, made by cave dwellers who lived by hunting
vizcacha, guanaco, vicuña and birds, some painted with pigments derived from minerals mixed
with gesso. Their lines, dots and geometrical forms belong to a symbolic system impossible to
interpret today. The extraordinary quantity of handprints visible in the Cueva de los Manos in
Patagonia were made as long ago as 10,000 years, and again, their purpose and origin remains a
mystery.
By around 1000 to 500 BC, the nomadic groups had grown in size and were too large to subsist on hunting alone and so started early attempts at agriculture. They grew potatoes and maize, and a mummy found from this period (displayed in Cachi's museum) with a few artefacts and belongings suggests that these peoples had a developed system of beliefs. By 2000 years ago, small communities had started to gather on the alluvial plains, living on agriculture and herding llamas. In many of the area's museums, you'll see large grinding stones made of granite, used to grind maize, as well as arrowheads and pipes used for smoking tobacco. Weaving began around this time, and there are some fine fabrics found at Santa Rosa Tastil.
There were three distinct periods in the cultural development of the northwest. The Early Period (500 BC to AD 650) witnessed the beginnings of agriculture as well as pottery and metalworking, with the remains of terraces near Humahuaca in Jujuy. The Middle Period (AD 650-850) was marked by the influence of the great culture of Tiahuanaco in present-day Bolivia. Fine metal objects, some of them of gold and silver, were made and new plant varieties were introduced. You'll find stone vessels, anthro- pomorphic clay pieces, and ornate ceramics from this period all over the Northwest.
In the Later Period (AD 850-1480), known as the Period of Regional Development, small groups of settlers formed communities with individual dwellings, usually based on circular stone walls, next to water sources. Both ritual and functional ceramics were made by peoples known as the Santamariana or Diaguita culture. Although there was no system of writing, their language, Kakán, survived until the Inca invasion in the late 15h century. These cultures made large, beautifully painted funerary urns, thought to bury the bones of children, since the infant mortality rate was high. The predominant religious beliefs centred around worship of the mother earth goddess, the Pachamama (see box, page ), and she's still worshipped in rural communities all over the Northwest today, with lively festivals on 1 August.
The Incas first arrived in the Calchaquíes valleys area between 1410 and 1430, incorporating the area into the part of their empire known as Kollasuyo. They built two parallel roads along the length of the Andes and along the Pacific shore: busy trade routes linking their communities with the rest of the Inca empire. The Incas made Quechua the official language, punished the chiefs of any groups whose members transgressed and absorbed the local cult of the earth goddess Pachamama into their own system of worship of the sun.
The Incas also brought with them their own sacrificial burial customs. The bodies of three children found at the summit of Cerro Llullaillaco on the Salta/Chile border indicate young humans were killed as offerings. These three, aged between seven and 15, were carried to the summit, dressed in special garments, adorned with feather headdresses and jewellery, and put to sleep using strong local liquor chicha. It's thought that they were offered as a sacrifice to the gods in their belief that to gain life, life has also to be sacrificed. It's also possible that their death sealed some kind of political alliance between the Inca and the chief of a new colony. The children's peaceful faces show no sign of distress so it's likely that they died painlessly within minutes, and Salta's new MAAM museum on the plaza has a fascinating display of photographs of he children and an extraordinary array of artefacts buried with them. The Calchaquíes valleys were the site of particularly bloody battles when the Spanish attempted to dominate in the 16th century, and many indigenous groups were wiped out, but fortunately, in the northwest of Argentina, there are living descendants from many of the original inhabitants, keeping their customs and beliefs alive.
Central and Southern Argentina
The Comechingones, who inhabited what are now the provinces of Córdoba and San Luis, lived in
settlements of pit-dwellings and used irrigation to produce a range of crops. In the far
northeast on the eastern edge of the Chaco were the Guaraní; organized into loose
confederations, they lived in rudimentary villages and practised slash-and-burn agriculture
to grow maize, sweet potatoes, manioc and beans. They also produced textiles and ceramics.
Further south, the Pampas and Patagonia were much more sparsely populated than the northwest and most groups were nomadic long after the arrival of the Spanish. One of the most important groups were the Querandí, who eked out a living by hunting guanaco and rheas with boleadoras, three balls of stone tied with thong and hurled at the legs of a running animal. Patagonia was inhabited by scattered nomadic groups including the Pampa, the Chonik and the Kaingang, who managed to avoid contact with white settlers until the 19th century. In the steppes of Patagonia, the Tehuelche and Puelche lived as nomadic hunters living off guanaco, foxes and game.
In the far south, in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, there were four indigenous groups, the land-based Ona and Haush, who hunted foxes and guanaco, wearing their hides and constructing temporary dwellings of branches covered loosely with skins. And the sea based Yaghanes and Alacaluf, who made canoes, paddles, bailers and mooring rope, catching fish with spears or by hand, though seals were their main source of food. These peoples survived until the late 19th century and were befriended and protected by the son of Tierra del Fuego's first settler and missionary. Lucas Bridges' account in Uttermost Part of the Earth gives an extraordinary insight into the customs and hunting practices of the Ona and Yaghanes. Within 50 years of the arrival of white sheep-farmers, many had been shot, or coerced into religious missions where they could be controlled, and now no single descendent remains.
