Las prácticas funerarias en el Pucará de Tilcara (Jujuy, Argentina). Nuevos aportes para su conocimiento a partir del caso de la Unidad Habitacional 1

Abstract

This paper analyzes the funerary practices developed at a household of the prehistoric site known as the Pucará de Tilcara, in order to evaluate attributes of social belonging among the different types of inhumations, so far detected and excavated. We also present the characterization of the sepultures identified in the so called Residential Unit 1. During the Inca occupation, when the Pucará de Tilcara became the political head of the region, this house functioned as a household and, as a workshop mostly dedicated to ceramic and specialized metallurgical production. Once abandoned, it suffered different transformations in order to be used as a mortuary place. The study of funerary behavior allowed us to reveal the relationship between the living and the death at the domestic sphere of the archaeological village. At a broader intrasite scale, the authors will compare this case to other mortuary contexts in Pucara de Tilcara.

Keywords

• Late Precolumbian period
• Quebrada de Humahuaca
• Bioarchaeology
• archaeology of death
• Andean rituality (author´s keywords)