This study discusses the implications for rock-art landscapes of the articulation between different modes of mobility and pastoral and caravan practices in the southern Pozuelos basin (Puna of Jujuy, Argentina) during the Regional Developments Period (900–1430 AD). From a theoretical-methodological approach that integrates the stylistic and contextual study as well as the archeology of landscape, it is proposed that people, animals and knowledge circulated in this micro-region via two types of mobility: pastoral transhumance and caravan traffic. In a context of interethnic conflict as suggested by several authors for this period, the analyzed rock-art landscapes show an iterative performativity that could be maintained and protected by a group that was probably local, which perpetuated through time a recurring logic and rituality, sustained by the same technical, compositional and conceptual knowledge found in the manufacture of rock art. Thus, this study proposes the existence of caravan and caravan/pastoralist locations along one of the southwestern routes entering and leaving the Pozuelos basin associated with a micro-regional mode of circulation that interacted in different ways with the interregional traffic networks.

The North Patagonian west coast shows signs of sporadic occupations at least between 6000 and 900 years BP. In this paper, we present the results of a first approach from lithic taphonomy to Alero 2, located in the archaeological site of Punta Pórfido. The excavations carried out suggest that the rock shelter has a complex formational history, dominated by endogenous processes, such as weathering and rockfall processes that, together with the presence of potential pseudo-artifacts, pose a relevant research problem. The present work uses conceptual and methodological tools derived from lithic taphonomy and experimental archaeology to discuss the process of formation of the lithic record.