This work by Henrik B. Lindskoug—based on his PhD thesis—aims to understand the processes of abandonment of the Aguada society in the Ambato Valley (Catamarca, Argentina) through the study of the paleoenvironmental conditions associated with them. In accordance with this general goal, Lindskoug proposes as a specific objective the development of techniques and methods to identify fire sequences and regimes, based mainly on the analysis of microcharcoal recovered through the sampling of the geological sequences in the area.
The author provides an important visual support for the analysis and results by including more than a hundred figures, including graphics, drawings, and photographs. The work is organized in three parts that include nine chapters, through which he presents various aspects of his investigation, plus a bibliography and three appendixes. It should be noted that each part and chapter can be read separately, but taken together they allow a more complete view of the scenarios of occupation and depopulation of the valley. For this reason, each of these sections is reviewed separately here, followed by an overview of the study.
In part 1, after the introductory chapter, the theoretical perspectives and analytical categories that are used in the investigation of the subject are explained, emphasizing central concepts that support them, such as landscape, fire, and environment. The notion of landscape as a cultural construction, dynamic and relative, turns out to be a common thread throughout the book. Chapter 2 presents a rich discussion questioning the nature/culture dichotomy, addressing aspects related to climate perceptions and abandonment models, with significant background about this problem in northwestern Argentina.
Chapter 3 provides a brief overview of the occupation and disappearance of Aguada, with a focus on the Ambato Valley, describing the background and current archaeological research on the subject. Chapter 4 addresses landscape problems, considering natural environment, geology, and paleoenvironmental studies. It expands on the Aguada social landscape and its archaeological record, considering in particular the information provided by researchers who have excavated and analyzed contexts with clear evidence of fires at the sites Iglesia de los Indios, Piedras Blancas, and Martínez II.
Chapter 5 addresses fire ecology, its origin (natural or cultural) and behavior, the factors that affect it, and its consequences and effects, with an analysis of several types of models used in fire studies and their recognition in the archaeological record. Chapter 6 discusses the tools used by environmental archaeology to reconstruct paleoenvironments and paleoclimates, including various proxies related to pollen and, especially, microcharcoal analysis (pedoanthracology) and their application to the study area.
Part 2 includes specific analyses performed on the sampled sediments. Chapter 7 develops an exhaustive examination of microcharcoal, with samples from 17 stations distributed throughout the valley. This is the main method of analysis used to address fire regimes in the past. It is accompanied by an appendix with detailed qualitative and quantitative information on all the stations and sediments sampled. Chapter 8 presents and discusses the complementary studies of phosphates, organic matter, magnetic susceptibility, pH, and so forth that were done on those samples.
In part 3, which includes chapter 9 and two appendixes, the author presents the conclusions of his research, discussing the abandonment processes and their characteristics in the study area. To do so, he considers the results of past wildfire regimes, their regularity over time, the impact of drought during occupation and final depopulation, and its timing and scope, along with social factors related to internal and external tensions. He concludes that wildfires played an important role but, based on the regularity of such episodes, as seen in the history of sediments, it is unlikely that these were the only factors involved in the abandonment of the valley. He understands that natural and sociocultural factors could cause instability or stress in the population and influence the subsequent abandonment of the area.
The bibliography is consistent with the theoretical-methodological approach and previous regional archaeological studies. It should be noted that some recent publications on the abandonment of the area are not treated in this book, although they would enrich this valuable study even more, by incorporating other perspectives.
The archaeology of the Ambato Valley constitutes a challenge for the study of abandonment processes. Its archaeological record and the data accumulated by different researchers over the years have generated an important body of evidence and information, with several contexts interpreted as final scenarios of occupation. Although this study does not offer definitive conclusions regarding the type of abandonment of the sites, their destruction and burning, the intentionality or not of those events, or the factors that caused them, it offers significant results that allow us to advance our understanding of such issues on a firm basis. Its main strength lies in the construction of a solid methodology based fundamentally on pedoanthropology, with novel and consistent analytical methods that are adequate to the problem and a theoretical approach that moves away from dual nature/culture views.
In this sense, the work constitutes an important contribution to archaeology, not only advancing the study of regional issues related to abandonment and paleoenvironments but also in wider methodological and conceptual aspects. It opens alternative lines of study that can be used in other contexts with similar problems, such as weighing the role of natural factors in social decisions and widening the discussion about current abandonment hypotheses, an issue that is also being approached from other perspectives (Gordillo and Vindrola-Padrós, Antiquity 91(355):155–72).
