Waka’s, muertos y pukaras: el papel de los ancestros en la conformación territorial de Tacuil, siglos X a XV (valle Calchaquí, noroeste argentino)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper focuses on the Tacuil pukara, a settlement of the Late or Regional Development Period (circa 900-1400 AD) located in the upper sector of the Calchaquí valley, in the present province of Salta, at 2700 meters above sea level, on a transversal ravine that connects the valley with the puna. This pukara is associated to another settlement in height, to low settlements and agricultural fields; and it presents in its walls scenes of rupestrian art and natural hollows that conform funerary spaces. The link between the pukara and the dead is analyzed; the relationship between internal space and external space (or inside and outside) is discussed and reflected upon, and the possibility is raised that the pukara was constituted as a wak'a, that is, as the materialization of an ancestrality sustained by a vitality that presents a generative, fertilizing power that regenerates and ensures social reproduction. Under this role, this pukara would have participated actively in daily life, maintaining a social and territorial role.
Source: Estudios Sociales del NOA
Author: María Cecilia Castellanos
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7143431659