ResumenEl presente trabajo constituye una reevaluación de la secuencia cronológico-cultural del período Arcaico en Taltal, en un intento por documentar las continuidades y transformaciones en la organización económica de las poblaciones locales que habitaron este territorio, a partir de nuevos datos generados durante los últimos años en conjunto con otros estudios realizados en la zona anteriormente. Esta investigación ha estado principalmente orientada al registro y comprensión de tres variables principales dentro de los sistemas económicos de las comunidades de cazadores, recolectores y pescadores del área de estudio: los sistemas de movilidad, las prácticas de subsistencia y la tecnología.Palabras claves: secuencia cronológica -organización económica -norte de Chile -costa arreica -Taltal. AbstractThis study is a reassessment of the chronological and cultural sequence of the Archaic Period in Taltal, in an attempt to document the continuities and transformations in the economic organization of local populations who inhabited this area. We base our understanding of this process on new data generated by our project in recent years, as well as previously published studies in the area. This research has been mainly directed towards the understanding of three variables in the economic organization of Taltal's hunter-gatherer-fisher communities: mobility systems, subsistence practices and technology.

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Hunter‐gatherer architectural practices are one of the main sources of data to understand the complex land use of these societies. In the hyperarid Atacama Desert coast (Northern Chile), hunter‐gatherers‐fishers developed standardized stone‐built architecture during the Late Archaic period (∼5,700–4,000 cal years BP), interpreted so far as sedentary villages or long‐term campsites. Nevertheless, the lack of site formation process studies and systematic chronostratigraphies defy such functional interpretations. To address these issues, we reconstruct the lifecycle of a recently discovered semisubterranean structure at the Zapatero site (~25°S, Taltal). Combining stratigraphy, micromorphology, faunal and lithic analysis, as well as radiocarbon dating, we evidence a broad sequence involving different processes: shell midden formation; a stone‐structure; a prepared burial pit; a burning event; a short‐term occupational episode; and the entombment of the structure. We interpret this sequence as ritualized actions related to commemorative and place‐making activities. Our work stresses the need for new research programs at the Atacama Desert coast, based on geoarchaeological approaches, to understand hunter‐gatherer‐fisher middening and architectural practices from the very materiality involved in stratigraphy‐making processes.

Early inhabitants along the hyperarid coastal Atacama Desert in northern Chile developed resilience strategies over 12,000 years, allowing these communities to effectively adapt to this extreme environment, including the impact of giant earthquakes and tsunamis. Here, we provide geoarchaeological evidence revealing a major tsunamigenic earthquake that severely affected prehistoric hunter-gatherer-fisher communities ~3800 years ago, causing an exceptional social disruption reflected in contemporary changes in archaeological sites and triggering resilient strategies along these coasts. Together with tsunami modeling results, we suggest that this event resulted from a ~1000-km-long megathrust rupture along the subduction contact of the Nazca and South American plates, highlighting the possibility of M w ~9.5 tsunamigenic earthquakes in northern Chile, one of the major seismic gaps of the planet. This emphasizes the necessity to account for long temporal scales to better understand the variability, social effects, and human responses favoring resilience to socionatural disasters.

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