Was There a Santa Maria Culture ? A Discussion of a Commonly Used Concept in Argentine Archaeology

In this article the Santa Maria culture, a commonly used concept in Argentine archaeology, is discussed. Historically, this concept has been given varying definitions, which all have to be evaluated. As far as we understand, only aspects of the variabil ity in artifacts, etc. , have been used to define cultural units. A more fruitful and perhaps more empirical approach estimates the general variabil ity without a priori assuming one single explanation or interpretation for this variability.


INTRODUCTION
Through 1989 -94 excavations were undertaken at the site of El Pichao in north-western Argentina. They were undertaken as a joint venture between Swedish and Argentine archaeologists. As a result, a general chronology of the site was developed, covering the time period AD 1000-1700 (Cornell & Johansson 1993).Intensive work on one single site was quite fruitful. However, this specific site must be put into a regional context. As a continuation of the project, we now intend to study settlement variability over a larger area. In order to do so, some cultural concepts commonly used in NW Argentine archaeology must be evaluated.
archaeologists often called it the Calchaqui or the Diaguita culture.
Major contributions to this discussion were made at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th by scholars like Juan B Ambrosetti, Eric Boman, Carlos Bruch, Samuel A Lafone Quevedo, Erland Nordenskiöld, Adan Quiroga, Eric von Rosen, ten Kate and Max Uhle. Only a few of them organised more systematic excavations, and their efforts remained often quite "impressionistic". Still, they created a sort of data base, or points of reference, which was an important pioneer work. This generation of BACKGROUND The Santa Maria culture is a common concept in north-west Argentine archaeology. This culture is often represented by a funeral vessel for children, named the Santa Maria urn. Historically, this culture has been given many different extensions and many different names. During the first part of our century  (Boman 1908:767 -778 (Boman 1908:571,773).In some areas he even reports the absence of lithic technology (1908:357).
In an extensive footnote added to the text, Boman discussed the findings of Ambrosetti at the La Paya site high up in the Calchaqui river valley. Boman concludes that these remains must be ascribed to the Atacamas group. There are some burial urns for children with a decoration similar to that found in the Santa Maria Valley at La Paya, but Boman explains them as imported items (note, Boman 1908:778).These observations thus changed the northern border of the Diagui ta phenomenon in relation to Bomans ethnic map. Boman generally does not discuss chronological questions. In relation to some findings in Jujuy, excavated by Boman and the wellknown Swedish ethnographer Erland Nordenskiöld, he discussed a series of successive cultural migrations. Large funerary vessels, containing adults (probably primary burial), are interpreted as remains from a Guarani expansion into this area, while vessels with some decoration and the remains of small children are interpreted as vestiges of a Diaguita expansion into this area (Boman 1905(Boman , 1908. Nordenskiöld discussed the material from Jujuy in similar terms. He actually returned to this material in various studies. In a preliminary report from 1903, he discussed the cultural identity of the material but could not arrive at any more definite conclusion. He tended to believe that the material was more linked to the cultures of the Chaco area than to the "Calchaqui people". In later, more general studies he discussed the "positive" influence of the "mountain culture" on the people living east of the mountains (Nordenskiöld 1919: 235 -251, 1920:203).In one of his last publications, Nordenskiöld once again discussed the relation between the Diaguita and the cultures east of the Andes. He defines the Diaguita as a largely Andean culture, but with a strong "Amazonian" influence in ceramics, particularly on the type of funerary vessel often found in the Santa Maria Valley (1930:32,cf. Rydén 1956 for a discussion). CHRONOLOGY AND CULTURAL UNITS Max Uhle was a German archaeologist living and working for several years in different South American countries. He did not excavate, but he collected items in Argentina, generally through purchase, in the beginning of the 1890s (Uhle 1904 also aware of Steward's discussion on the "culture core". From this surged a very special type of archaeology. Gonzalez used the term "cultural context". He defined this as a series of traits (artifacts and other material remains) occurring together in a specific area, defining a particular culture. This definition is congruent with Kulturkreislehre, but also with Gordon Childe's famous definition of (archaeological) culture as a set of artifacts occurring together repetitively.
Gonzalez developed his major studies on archaeological remains in the Hualfin Valley, where he developed a master sequence (partially working on collections) still applied in NW Argentina (Gonzalez 1975 For example, the Diaguita and the Calchaqui people are similar, but not identical concepts. The La Paya material is crucial here. While this material was included in the Calchuqui people category (and later in the Santa Maria Culture concept), it was excluded in the Diaguita category. When these concepts are used: and they still occur frequently in the literature: the definition in terms of archaeological remains is vague and very general. The concept of the Santa Maria Culture was linked more systematically to archaeological evidence by Gonzalez, and the distribution in space was much more limited. The discussion by Gonzalez demonstrates his deep knowledge of the archaeology of the region, and his systematic approach to the craft. However, the definition of the cultural context is not entirely satisfactory. Still, we do not know why he gives particular importance to certain elements, and less importance to others.
In some recent literature, the culture concept has been replaced by a definition based on political forms. Ana Maria Lorandi considers that the Santa Maria culture represents a specific level of socio-political development.
In her opinion, NW Argentine cultures during the period in question were organised as large chiefdoms (Lorandi & Ottonello 1985).These were later destroyed during the Incaic conquest.
The socio-political definition has never been discussed systematically in relation to the archaeological evidence. In most discussions of chiefdoms and early states, the definition is based on site hierarchies. Sites are ordered according to size, and if there is a pattern with a few very large sites, some intermediate size sites and several smaller sites, this is seen as indicating the existence of an administrative system. This argument is actually hard to sustain (Cornell 1993 But the interpretation of these features is not straightforward.
There may be different explanations or interpretations for different attributes and their spatial distribution. Some aspects may be explained by mere functional explanations (e.g. the use of local lithic material), while other aspects may be interpreted by more complex social patterns. It cannot be excluded that there were different, partially overlapping, social group identities operating in the area. Tartusi &Nunez-Regueiro proposes, for example, that the so-called Condorhuasi "culture" actually corresponds only to a specific type of ceremonial ceramics, not linked to specific "cultures" (Tartusi & Nunez-Regueiro 1993).We can thus never know to what ethnic group the individual Indian considered himself to belong. Perhaps it would be more suitable to look for variation in a more general sense, and interpret particular traits and correlated traits, rather than to look for possibilities to delimit specific cultures. Different levels of integration can be identified, in some instances overlapping such. At a basic level, the household may be a basic social unit (Cornell 1993(Cornell , 1995(Cornell /1996. The site may be another unit. At the Pichao site the distribution of water, for example, required some general co-ordination at the site level. There may, however, be Carrenr Swedish Arehaeologr, Voh 6, l 998 other special integrative levels within a site. Some of the pottery, for example, may have been produced by a group of specialists (Sjödin 1996). In a regional perspective, common traits include the use of a range of domesticated animals and plants, imported obsidian, some shared ceramic styles and forms, and a common grave shape (Johansson 1996). The distribution of these attributes in time and space does not correspond, and it is unlikely that they can be explained or interpreted by one general model.
Our The repeated patterns and motifs of decoration on the Santa Maria urns is a particular trait, which may have a specific interpretation. These patterns may have been produced by potters who specialised in the production of funerary vessels. The decoration on the Santa Maria ceramics may correspond to a few similar histories or myths common to a lot of people in a large area. The so-called Santa Maria culture was not constituted by common building traditions or general artifact similarity but by materialised myths, evident in the decoration on some ceramic material. The importance of this ceramic style has been discussed by many archaeologists. There are even (all too) fantastic structuralist interpretations on these patterns, based only on objects in museum collections (Weber 1981