Modes of dwelling
After a first contact in 1551, the Hispanic presence in the study region was consolidated in 1561 with the foundation of the city of Mendoza. Although a stable settlement was implemented from that point forward, it would have begun with a small hamlet that would only consolidate as a small city of about 5,000 inhabitants in the mid-17th century, which would double by the end of that century. In this period, the production mode was predominantly agro-pastoral: cereals, grapevines, and fruit trees were cultivated, and pigs, cattle, and especially sheep and goats were raised. Outside the city area, the influence would have been limited except for productive enclaves (livestock or mining) or small occupations such as posts on the roads. This small economy was marginally integrated into the South American colonial economy centered on mining in Alto Peru, providing wine, spirits, and fruit raisins, so that other activities were aimed at self-sufficiency (Coria 1988; Lacoste et al., 2011; Prieto, 1989, 2000; Ponte, 1987).
Regarding fuel consumption, the production of ceramics was again recorded and increased in association with the production and trade of wine and spirits. The production of distilled spirits also meant a new demand for firewood. In addition, although the city was built mostly with unfired clay, some structures were made with fired bricks or roofed with tiles. Mining, although its importance varied throughout the period, also demanded fuel at different stages of its production process. Cattle raising also implied a greater demand for fuel associated with the processing of milk. In this case, the growth and distribution of woody plants were also conditioned by new modes of production and the entry of exotic plants and animals, among others. The stability of occupation implies pressure on the environment concentrated around the area of occupation.
During the colonial period, the indigenous people were able to maintain their mode of dwelling to a relative degree, since the colonial authorities did not achieve effective control over the entire study area and their possibilities for mobility were limited. During this period, cattle and some of the plants brought by the European settlers were also incorporated into their productive methods (Prieto, 2000).
Socio-environmental relationship framework
For the colonial case, a continuity of medieval meanings is registered in the field of socio-environmental relations, especially for popular and marginal contexts such as the city of Mendoza. Descola (2012) proposes for these contexts a mode of identification that he calls analogism, which implies an understanding of the world as populated by singular beings whose stability is subject to complex procedures for the control of their inter-affectation. This determines spatial and temporal orders according to relations of convenience, emulation, analogy, and sympathy. All of them temporally and spatially order agricultural and subsistence practices and environments. In this context, there was also a particular understanding of the wild and the domestic as complementary categories, which do not differentiate practices, spheres, or valuations in a restrictive manner. Agriculture is presented as a transversal practice of the human-plant relationship associated with both orchard species that produce edible fruits and forest species that provide firewood (Mafferra, 2019).
However, for the case study based on documentary data, a distinction can be identified in the treatment and valuation of native environments and the new environments that were formed during the period (Mafferra y Marconetto, 2016). Although both are described with the exaggerated prose characteristic of the time, it is clear that the former were experienced as oppressive and dangerous, while the latter were seen as orchards. This could be a regional manifestation of a way of perceiving New World environments that was common among European colonizers and assimilated the discovered landscapes to archetypes of "wilderness" or "paradise" (Nash, 2014).
Archeological record and mode of firewood use
In this case, the Foundational Area site of the City of Mendoza is studied, where four contexts corresponding to different occupations of the colonial period are analyzed and different phenomena are evident. The first two are associated with the transition between the 16th and 17th centuries. “Ruinas de San Francisco” (RSF) corresponds to a context found below a 1608 stratigraphic seal. There, the charcoals were found scattered in the sediment of a hut floor. Indigenous ceramics of the Viluco and colonial types, remains of native and introduced fauna, and Triticum sp. carporemains were found. “Alberdi e Ituzaingó” (AeI), corresponds to an accumulation of coals in a waste deposition pit. Introduced fauna, colonial red, glazed, and majolica ceramics, indigenous ceramics of the Viluco type, and Prunus persica endocarps were found in this pit (Chiavazza et al., 2013; López et al., 2011; Mafferra, 2016).
In the early case, the charcoal samples are characterized by low (RSF) and low intermediate (AeI) richness and diversity (Fig. 2). In RSF, this may be accentuated by the fact that it is a small sample. A single taxon was frequently burned, representing 50.33% of the frequency. At AeI, three plants were frequently burned, totaling 77.97%. In both sites, no regularly used plants were recorded, and occasionally burned plants totaled 49.66% in RSF and 22.02% in AeI. In both cases, the most frequent taxa are Vachellia/Prosopis, and in AeI is added Prunus aff. persica and Libidibia paraguarensis. Plants burned regularly or frequently in the pre-Hispanic period are now recorded occasionally and differentiated between both contexts: in RSF, Larrea sp. and B. retama are identified, and in AeI, Larrea sp. and G. decorticans (Fig. 4).
Since these contexts are synchronous and very close in space, the differences between the two are striking. Similarly, the low richness and diversity and the early presence of firewood from introduced plants such as P. persica or allochthonous plants such as L. paraguarensis (the phytogeographic province of Chaco) may indicate an initial conflictive integration of the colonists and the indigenous environment. As the study points out, this is evident in the documentary testimonies of the period (Mafferra and Marconetto 2017). In this sense, the contextual and documentary information suggests that native plants were not valued as highly by the settlers because they were not as profitable. The quality of their fruits or their wood, for example, was underestimated. Some documents mention the tribute in the form of firewood demanded from the natives (Michielli, 1983: 48 y 50). For this reason, some of the wood burned may not have been collected directly by the colonists. Likewise, they may have demanded a certain type of firewood, which could indicate an early valuation of the wood of Vachellia/Prosopis.
“Edificio Plaza Fundacional” (EPF) is a context found in a stratigraphic position similar to that of AeI and located at the same lot. It is characterized by early materials such as indigenous ceramics or Aggri-perlen type beads. Its date, however, is later: the transition between the 17th and 18th centuries. The context is interpreted as an accumulation of debris, including abundant charcoal remains. Significant elements were also found for the region of Viluco-type indigenous ceramics, such as zoomorphic dishes and a bowl, as well as lithic carving remains. These ceramics and other materials, such as necklace beads, are proposed to have played an important role in the ethnogenesis processes undergone by the indigenous population during the colonial period. Therefore, it is possible to associate this context with that of a mainly indigenous occupation taking place in the core of the colonial city. As typical in these assemblages, there is also early colonial red pottery and glazed majolica of the Carrascal type (Chiavazza et al., 2013). There are also carporemains of introduced plants such as Triticum sp., Secale sp., and Hordeum sp., among others (Mafferra, 2016).
In this culturally complex context, it is striking how the trends in the taxonomic identification of charcoal are similar to those recorded during the pre-Hispanic period at the MB site. Especially, similar trends in the taxa commonly used: Vachellia/Prosopis, Larrea sp., G. decorticans, B. retama. At this case Erythrostemon gilliesii is added. Regarding the abundance index, some differences are evident: two plants are used frequently and five others regularly, a less rich but more diverse sample than the one analyzed in the pre-Hispanic period (Fig. 5).
For the pre-Hispanic period, we suggest that the collection of firewood was carried out in the framework of other daily activities of the indigenous community. If we accepted this proposition, would the finding of similar trends during the colonial period indicate that the indigenous population tried to continue their way of life by resisting the limitations and impositions given in this unfavorable context? Do the differences or nuances highlighted here reflect the constraints imposed?
“Edificio Plaza Huarpe” (EPH) corresponds to the transition from the 17th and 18th centuries, associated with an eminently colonial occupation. The context is interpreted as an accumulation related to a discard sector, where remains of introduced fauna and colonial and indigenous "Viluco"-type ceramics were identified (López et al., 2011; Chiavazza et al., 2013). There are also recovered carporemains of P. persica, Triticum sp., Vitis vinifera, and Olea europaea, among others (Mafferra, 2016). The charcoal sample is characterized by its high richness and diversity (Fig. 5). Frequent burning of G. decorticans and Boungainvillea spinosa is recorded, in addition to eight other taxa that were used regularly: Rosacea aff. Cydonia/Pirus/Malus; Prosopis aff. flexuosa; Bulnesia retama; Aff. Prosopidastum; Prunus aff. persica; Vitis vinifera; Aff. Tessaria; and Aff. Asteraceae.
In this context, it is evident that the trends observed in the early colonial period are related to the settlers' lack of knowledge of the native environment. In EPH, the results allow us to observe a more established socio-environmental relationship, which would account for the consolidation of new production modes as well as the knowledge of the indigenous environment and the changes and dynamics initiated by the colonial way of life. Regarding the first aspect, it is interesting to note the use of both native and introduced cultivated plants as firewood. In particular, P. persica, Cydonia/Pirus/Malus and V. vinifera were important plants in colonial society for food, medicine, or religious rituals, among others. In addition, their cultivation and cultural management involved annual pruning to make them more fruitful, and even when they became old, they were usually cut down and replanted. All this was well known in the period and favored practices that contributed to both the generation of fruits and the production of firewood. Thus, it is interesting how firewood is associated with plants whose cultural management requires annual pruning but is not recorded in association with others, such as olive or fig trees, which we know were commonly planted but whose cultivation did not require recurrent pruning. As for the analysis of the diameter of the log, the dominance of the branches among the remains of plants cultivated during the colonial period (Figs. 4 and 5), could be indicating that part of the firewood was produced by agricultural pruning (Mafferra, 2018b, 2019; Mafferra et al., 2015).
Landscape shaping
The results of charcoal identification from early colonial contexts indicate that the indigenous landscape did not undergo drastic changes during the pre-Hispanic period. With respect to the modes of dwelling that began in the colonial period, they were able to introduce dynamics that would begin to delineate new configurations of the forest landscape. These may be related to the early colonial modes of firewood use with low richness and diversity, but rather the changes were driven by the stable occupation, the increased demand for fuel, new forms of agriculture (use of plows and animal power), water management (proliferation of canals), and the introduction of exotic fauna. All this may have affected the distribution and characteristics of the plants most in demand or most affected by the new ways of life. However, these changes should be understood as restricted to this group's inhabited, productive, and transit areas.
With these dynamics in mind, EPH results for the late period may first of all indicate a retraction of some of the most commonly used species during the early colonial period, such as Vachellia/Prosopis. Documentary data indicates that these plants were still available but inhabited in shrub form (Prieto, 1989). It is possible that the combined action of anthropogenic factors such as excessive extraction and the action of introduced fauna may have contributed to this process, as has been recorded in current cases (Roig, 1972). Similarly, the lack of use in this context of plants such as Bulnesia or the occasional use of others such as Larrea, both of which were regularly used in previous periods, may account for availability restrictions. New uses of soil or water, combined with environmental changes that increased river flow in the region beginning in the 18th century (Prieto, 2000), may have favored the reproduction of riparian plants that were then commonly used, such as Geoffroea and Bougainvillea. Even others introduced in this period, such as Tamarix gallica, are occasionally present in the record but are now widely distributed in the basins of the region.
From the identification of carporemains, the rapid entry of plants such as Prunus persica, Vitis vinifera, and Olea europaea becomes evident. Charcoal analysis allowed us to see how the first of these was also important as firewood in early times. Later in the colonial period, Cydonia, Pirus, Malus, and Vitis vinifera were also regularly burned. On the one hand, these crops, together with others that can be inferred based on carpological and documentary data (such as wheat, oats, and alfalfa, among others), may have already formed a well-developed agricultural landscape (Coria, 1988; Lacoste et al., 2011).