History

Archaeology and History of Malargüe

From the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene, 10,000 years ago, until historical times, the southern region of the province of Mendoza was inhabited by hunter-gatherer human groups. This way of life endured in our region through time and space. This apparent continuity implied different changes evidenced in the economic, technological and social aspects, whose dynamics have been expressed in the diversity of the archaeological record, in the construction and occupation of the landscape by these human populations.

In the last two decades, different research groups have exponentially expanded the knowledge linked to the human past in the south of Mendoza. These lines have focused on understanding human action, emphasizing the study of technological and subsistence strategies. Due to the environmental diversity of southern Mendoza and the complexity of human problems in the past, archaeological studies have allowed us to investigate very diverse topics such as: human strategies in arid/semi-arid and high altitude environments, population dispersion, the hunting-gathering/agriculture relationship, social differentiation processes, the role of technology in social complexity, among many others.

In 1561 the Spanish founded the city of Mendoza, and for almost a century they settled and dominated the Huarpe territory, causing a high cultural and ideological impact on this culture, almost leading to its disappearance, due to their practices of slavery and killings and geographic relocation.

Towards the south the situation is different. The decentralized sociopolitical and cultural organization of these hunter-gatherer peoples known as the Puelches, Pehuenches and Mapuches made it possible to take advantage of the Spanish invasion strategy, who were unable to exercise absolute control, and as a result a kind of fluctuating frontier with diffuse boundaries was established.

This favored the establishment and consolidation of a vast commercial circuit, which interconnected the different regions. Among the goods that flowed westward, cattle and horses stood out. This situation, in which complementarity and competition between the Spanish-Creole society and the societies of the native peoples was balanced, lasted until the end of the 19th century. In contrast, the need of the new national state to expand its territory and expand its economy and the non-recognition of the native peoples as pre-existing peoples, justified the cultural, ideological and physical annihilation of these ethnic groups through different campaigns in their territory, which began first with the founding of the fort of San Rafael in 1805 and then with that of the fort of Malargüe in 1848. Finally, in 1879 it culminated with the so-called conquest of the desert, which forcibly subdued the populations in resistance, witnessing the first genocide in our history. The surviving native populations were incorporated into the society of the time, to amalgamate in a historical process of cultural invisibility, which will result in the current population of our department.

Today, the indigenous peoples in our region are carrying out a process of legitimization and recognition of their origins and territories as pre-existing peoples, to the National State, which dates back to the prehistory of southern Mendoza. Archaeology as a social science that studies the past of man through its material evidence, plays an important role in this process, working together with the communities to access a more complete knowledge that leads us to reformulate our pluricultural history of the current society in which we live.

Rethinking our history and reflecting on the practices regarding the indigenous past and its dynamics through a common history, contributes one more grain of sand, to begin to build an intercultural view of our individual and collective identity.