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Chevalier, Alexandre Post-doc Fellow, Dep. of Anthropology. University of Berkeley-California. Berkeley, CA 94720-3710. alexandre.chevalier.omit_this-to-be-valid@atelier.cx Our understanding of the peopling of the South America, in particular of the Central Andes, and of the ways of exploiting territories by nomadic groups of hunter-fisher-gatherers from 14'000BP are only known through lithic and archaeozoological studies. Although we know quite a bit about hunters we still know little about gatherers, their adaptation to extreme ecozones (desert, high altitude), their strategies of plant exploitation developed to manage fragile ecosystems while allowing their subsistence, and the way these groups have developed cognitive processes to adapt their knowledge to new ecosystems. The integration of knowledge about the vegetal world in the universe of the first Andeans would greatly advance knowledge about how Archaic groups have conceptualized nature, have adapted to it, and how they have exploited it. A previous research has highlighted some of the major difficulties encountered with the interpretation of assemblages of vegetal remains found in pre-Columbian archaeological sites in the Central Andes. Among the problems identified, I can cite the self-limitation of carpological analysis, the nature of the soils which is not always suitable for the preservation of biological remains, the inadequacy of the reference collections (due to a lack of fieldwork collecting and a lack of floristic determination accuracy), and the scarcity of theoretical models to interpret the identified remains. From this perspective, the use of phytolith analysis in Central Andean archaeobotany constitutes an important shift from existing pre-Columbian research paradigms. The aims of my actual post-doctoral research are to contribute to existing knowledge about the human presence in the Central Andes at the beginning of the Holocene, and to better understand the mechanisms built by man to survive in these extreme ecologies (aridity and very high altitude). These objectives imply the evaluation of how humankind managed its relationship with plants across time (plant assemblages, domestication, cognitive adaptations to new plants, plant integration into cultural systems), and the analysis of complementarities between economic systems in different ecozones. My hypothesis is that hunter-fishers of the Pacific Andean coast used local plant resources for alimentary purposes, and that they had economic relationships with other ecological zones in order to get vegetal products that they could not gather on the coast. I will therefore test and refine Moseley's maritime hypothesis for the origins of Andean civilization and the cycle mobility model proposed for Northern Chile. The archaeological sites where I propose to conduct phytolith analysis offer an ideal context in which to test this hypothesis. These sites include several ecosystems (desert coast and altiplano) and chronological periods (Middle and Late Archaic, and Formative), located in the same south central Andean region. Moreover the low floristic diversity index of the ecozones in which the archaeological sites are located, will allow me to test the experimental hypothesis within a reasonably short period of time. According to the principle of minimization of movements and energy involved to get a product {Johnson, 1977 #1979}, coastal sites should mainly exploit coastal resources and present an economy oriented toward sea exploitation, while high altitude sites should make use of Andean resources and have a hunting-gathering economy. Moseley's maritime hypothesis for the origins of Andean civilization (Moseley 1975) reflected this postulate in a somewhat exclusive way, but revised in 1992, which started a long debate on the primacy of sea vs. terrestrial resources in past economies for the origin of high, socially stratified, Andean cultural groups. I almost could qualify this debate as sterile, since all arguments are based on the same archaeological data for 30 years. Although there is evidence confirming the importance of sea exploitation in coastal sites for all periods {Keefer, 1998 #1303;Lavallée, 1999 #2001;Moseley, 1999 #2172;Rick, 1989 #53}, there is also evidence of plant use, even if research in that topic is still scarce (Benfer 1990; Weir 1988). We do have also evidence suggesting complementarity between economic systems in more recent periods (Inka and post Colonization), establishing links between coastal, Andean and Amazonian sites within bigger networks of exploitation of local resources and exchange of goods across middle and long distances {Buren, 1996 #1990;Mujica, 1985 #935;Murra, 1972 #248;Murra, 1975 #1639;Murra, 1985 #930;Murra, 1985 #931;Onuki, 1985 #944;Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, 1977 #250;Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, 1989 #375;Sutter, 2000 #2106}. The results of my dissertation demonstrated that this type of complementarity between systems existed some 2'000 years before the Conquest (Chevalier 2002), but little is still known about what the situation was before sedentarization of hunter-gatherers, for instance during the Archaic period. Were these nomadic groups exploiting different ecozones during their annual movements, or were they restricting themselves to only one ecozone? Recent studies show some seasonality / specialization of coastal {Chauchat, 1989 #54} and Andean sites {MacNeish, 1981 #183;Rick, 1989 #53;Rick, 1999 #2375} within only one ecozone. Other studies suggest however a complementarity in the exploitation of several ecozones year round {Aldenderfer, 1989 #2379;Lynch, 1971 #2170;Rossen, 1999 #2376;Sandweiss, 1998 #1301}. And some authors are questioning the reality of such a seasonal occupation of coastal sites, or the presence of any economic complementarity between coastal and western Andean slope sites {Lavallée, 1999 #2001;Lavallée, 2003 #2377}, in the light of the cycle mobility model proposed for Northern Chile {Llagostera, 1992 #2373;Nuñez, 1982 #2378;Rivera, 1991 #2380}. My project contributes to this line of research. Since this post-doctoral research just started a couple of months ago, I will be only able to present partial and incomplete results, but I hope they will contribute to the discussion of the importance and relevance of phytolith analysis in the Andean region.
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