REVISITING FORT GENERAL PAZ (1869-1876): ASSESSING THE VALUE OF THE SURFACE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF ITS SPATIAL ORGANIZATION

In this paper we discuss the surface archaeological record of Fort General Paz (Carlos Casares County, Buenos Aires Province), a military facility that served as the headquarters of the Buenos Aires Western Frontier between 1869 and 1876. The presence of abundant and heterogeneous surface archaeological materials allowed us to design a systematic surface collection program, with the aim of generating distributional information useful for inferring aspects of the settlement's spatial organization. Several patterns in the spatial distribution of different categories of archaeological materials (brick, glass, ceramic, and bone fragments, military artifacts) were identified. These patterns allow us to infer potential activity and midden areas, as well as the location of buildings that were part of the fort. The surface record is compared to the subsurface record (excavations and geophysical survey), as well as to documentary written and graphic sources, in particular a military plan of the fort that allows us to assess the validity of the surface patterns discerned. In sum, we argue that systematic surface collection, complemented with the information from other research techniques, constitutes a valid approach for an extensive, briefly-occupied, and post-depositionally affected site like Fort General Paz.