Shared knowledge and regional particularities of pipe smoking practices among the societies of the Early Ceramic Period from the northern semiarid, central and south of Chile, South America
This article presents new information about smoking practices through the use of pipes in three geographical-cultural regions of Chile from the beginning of the Early Ceramic period, ca. 200 BC, until 1.300 AD. A multidisciplinary approach was used, that included the study of the contexts in which these artifacts were found, their morpho-technological and decorative descriptions, and the archaeobotanical and chemical analysis of the smoked substances. The results revealed two relevant and central cultural aspects related to the use of smoking artifacts. One of them was the existence of a widespread use of pipes that involved different cultural groups during the Early Ceramic period in the three regions studied. Within this superregional tradition, we unraveled the existence of important regional and/or local peculiarities, which are related to the diverse and distinctive expressions and technological attributes of smoking artifacts, to the paraphernalia associated to these practices, to the qualitative differences between the sites and the contexts in which these artifacts were deposited, and to the time ranges in which these practices were performed.
Keywords:
practices, smoking, pipes, residue, early, ceramic, chile, period
Planella, M. T., Belmar, C., Quiroz, L., Niemeyer, H., Falabella, F., Alfaro, S., Echeverría, J., Albornoz, X., Carrasco, C., & Collao-Alvarado, K. (2018). Shared knowledge and regional particularities of pipe smoking practices among the societies of the Early Ceramic Period from the northern semiarid, central and south of Chile, South America. Revista Chilena De Antropología, (37), 20–57. Retrieved from https://revistachilenahumanidades.uchile.cl/index.php/RCA/article/view/49072
