Presentamos los resultados de la investigación arqueológica de un sitio fechado hacia el Holoceno Medio en los Andes del Norte Semiárido de Chile. La escasez de este tipo de evidencias pone de relieve la importancia de dar cuenta cabal del contexto estudiado y los conjuntos ahí recuperados. Las características del sitio como una estación de tareas de tipo avistadero hacen que Techo Negro se integre de forma significativa al conjunto de información regional disponible y permite confrontarla con el actual estado de algunos modelos de ocupación que incluyen la distribución diferencial de sitios y los cambios ambientales a escala de milenios.Palabras claves: uso del espacio, ocupaciones de cordones montañosos, Holoceno Medio, Norte Semiárido de Chile. We present the results of the archaeological research of a site dated to the Mid Holocene in the Andes in a Northern

The scarcity of middle Holocene radiocarbon dates in different regions of the Andes has been interpreted as an indicator of discontinuity in human occupations in response to adverse environmental conditions due to marked aridity. In the subtropical Andes of north-central Chile and adjacent areas, this paucity has been detected in radiocarbon ages between 8000 and 6000 cal BP. A systematic programme of cave excavations with detailed chronologies in the Combarbalá area in the Andean western foothills at 31°S allows questioning the role these spaces and ecosystems played for hunter-gatherers throughout the Holocene. The elusive record of dateable material has been addressed by excavating deposits under rock-shelters which tend to trap sedimentary material. This dataset has been compared with the available climate records and shows a collation between the onset of various site chronologies during the early-to-middle Holocene and periods of extreme aridity. The organization of mobility and the role of Andean foothills for hunter-gatherer settlements is reviewed. Resource availability in the area, namely fresh water supply, good-quality toolstones, faunal resources, and shelters, attracted mobile populations to these environments as indicated by our records as well as others in the broader region.

Coastal landscapes of the Pacific coast of South America are regarded as bountiful biomes, as they are zones on the fringes of Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems. Cumulative research shows an almost uninterrupted presence of mobile hunter-fisher-gatherer communities throughout the Holocene in North-Central Chile (29°–32° S). However, local-scale differences reveal the variability that is concealed by this broad characterization. Recent research in El Teniente Bay (31° S) shows few sites and occupations suggestive of low occupational redundancy as well as reduced archaeological assemblages, indicating limited activities in this landscape. However, several occupations date to the middle Holocene, a period when discontinuities in human occupations in response to adverse environmental conditions have been suggested on regional and supraregional scales. The main occupations detected at El Teniente are interpreted as a response to such conditions and in the context of changes in land use. Despite the spottiness of the archaeological record of El Teniente Bay, it is important in terms of its chronology and the differing trends in the use of space in comparison to other areas that have been the focuses of research. This paper addresses the archaeological record of El Teniente Bay and discusses its implications for human land use in the wider area of the coast of North-Central Chile.