CHARACTERIZATION OF EARTH BUILDING MATERIALS FROM ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES ON LA RIOJA AND AND CATAMARCA (ARGENTINA)

摘要

The use of earthen architecture had been widespread across the world in almost all continets since ancient times. In South America it has a long tradition, begining in pre Columbian cultures, but it survives until the present. The use of sediments for the construction of Earthen buildings was a common prehistoric technique, widely employed in arid and semi-arid lands, where other construction materials were scarce. Earthen building techniques are varied, and they can be classified in three general types: monolithic systems (rammed earth), brickwork (adobe o mudbrick), and mixed systems (wattle and daub). Nevertheless, the recognition of archaeological evidence indicative of these kind of buildings is problematical, because this kind of architecture is vulnerable to destruction by weathering, especially by wind and water erosion. These processes frequently blur the evidence of earthen architecture, leaving fillings or mounds composed by loose and fine-grained material difficult to attribute to disaggregated earthen architecture. So, the presence of earthen architecture is often assumed rather than demonstrated.