LANDSCAPE DEGRADATION AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE AT NORTHWEST ARGENTINA Sampietro Vattuone, M. M., L. Neder, J.

Busnelli

Argentinean northwest had long been considered as the richest archaeological area from Argentina, because it is the sector where the more developed prehispanic social groups were settled. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the natural degradation that suffered prehispanic archaeological sites during the last thirty years, as well as to know the most relevant factors that affected them. Multithematic, and multitemporal photointerpretation analyses were made over aerial photographs obtained at 1968, 1986, and 1995. These analyses provided an optimal framework to detect the processes and the way in which these processes affected archaeological sites. With this information we constructed a GIS that contained the archaeological information, and different erosive features. The analysis and evaluation of erosive processes and erosive hazard permitted to us to obtain the distribution, increasing and intensity that these processes reached together with its impact over archaeological sites. In conclusion we determine that over the more humid slopes there are a notorious degradation of prehispanic settlements and soils. The dominant factors were pluvial erosion, typical from these environments, intensified by anthropic pressure (urban expansion, and bad agricultural management), favoured by environmental conditions as intensive summer rains, high erosive susceptibility of loessic materials, and natural scarce vegetation.