Estudio carpológico de las terrazas de la comunidad de Jayaczhí para la recreación de paleoambientes, cantón Chunchi, provincia de Chimborazo

Abstract

The present research proposes: to elaborate the carpological study of the agricultural terraces in Joyaczhí Community for the reconstruction of the environment; fourth step helped us: performing the inventory of the current flora; recovering the archaeobotanical material; characterizing morphologically and taxonomically the recovered carpological samples and recreating the paleoenvironment of the site. The descriptive method was used to inventory the flora; the technique used was field observation and herborization, for the recovery of the archaeobotanical material the braids were divided in sectors “A and B” in each site three excavation units were realized, in the morphological and taxonomic characterization of the botanical samples digital seed catalogs were used and the program Photoshop CS6 in the digital processing of the photographs, in the paleoenvironmental reconstruction the samples at the level of familiar and species were taxonomically identified comparing them with the current flora and its different areas of life. Thus: a total of 55 species of flora of wich the main families are: Poaceae (22%), Fabaceae (11%) and Asteraceae (65%). A total of 203 plant samples (40%) were recovered in “sector A”, mainly from the families Amaranthaceae (56%) and Fabaceae (13%), a total of 301 samples were recovered in “sector B” (60%), 83% belongs to Amaranthaceae family, and 7% to Verbenaceae family. The families Moraceae, Papaveraceae, Rutaceae, Amaranthaceae and Brassicaceae were found in the archaeological record, but they are not present in this present species. It is concluded that there is a change in the agrobiodiversity and the identification of two different life zones to the present place.

Keywords: carpological study, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, agrobiodiversity.