Belen chronology up north of Hualfin Valley: Old problemas, new perspectives

Abstract

As a contribution to the issue of chronology for the last prehispanic populations which inhabited the Hualfín Valley, we present three recent dates for the late sites El Molino, Loma de la Escuela Vieja and Pueblo Viejo de El Eje, which are compared with four dates obtained by A. R. González for two of these sites. From the analysis of the entire set of dates, we established two divergent groups of ages. Three of the dating made by González for a single laboratory are much older than the others. The differences found are interpreted as the expression of possible problems with the application of the radiocarbon method, that couldn’t be detected before the comparison between laboratories. Given these problems, the results lead us to consider the idea that the three sites have been occupied simultaneously until the first decades in XV century.