Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2021
Este trabajo está centrado en el estudio de una de las primeras formas de manejo ganadero de la época colonial en la Banda Oriental. Aborda específicamente el análisis de un conjunto de corrales de palmas ubicados en el sureste del Uruguay, en la frontera con Brasil. Está basado en un enfoque interdisciplinar en el que se combinó el trabajo con la población local, el análisis historiográfico, la prospección remota y sobre el terreno, el análisis morfométrico de la totalidad de los corrales y las palmas que los componen, y el análisis fisicoquímico del sedimento (análisis de fosfatos y partículas biosilíceas). El artículo propone que estas estructuras son uno de los cerramientos ganaderos más antiguos (siglos diecisiete y dieciocho) de la Banda Oriental, vinculados a formas indígenas de manejo vegetal y animal que se fueron reajustando durante la colonización europea de este sector fronterizo del Cono Sur de América.
This work focuses on the study of one of the first livestock practices of colonial times in the Banda Oriental area (Southern Cone of America). Specifically, it analyzes a series of palm pens located in the southeast of Uruguay, on the border with Brazil. The study follows an interdisciplinary approach based on work with local people, historiographic analysis, archaeological prospecting, morphometric analysis of pens and palms, and physicochemical analysis of sediments. The interpretation of the information was carried out on an intra- and inter-pen scale, as well as on a broader spatial scale in relation to different elements of the archaeological landscape during the colonial and republican periods. These different sources of information and scales allowed us to discover aspects relating to the construction techniques of the pens, their age, and their origin, opening up new historical interpretations of their functionality. This article proposes that these structures are one of the oldest cattle enclosures (between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) in the Banda Oriental and are linked to indigenous plant and animal management techniques that were readjusted during the European colonization of this border sector of South America.