my @alldata (%caralo_l, %androno_j, %paterman_s);
...
Question: Is this really an array of hashes?

Well, hardburn almost had it. It's actually just an array. Perl will flatten your hashes. If you wrote it as

my @alldata = (\%caralo_l, \%androno_j, \%paterman_s);
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It seems to me kind of a waste to repeat the KEY information in each hash, but I haven’t thought up a better way.

Yes, it is a waste. You might consider just using an array of arrays and then keeping a hash where the keys are your column names and the values are their indexes in the array.

Edit: Added the missing '=' in the assignment. I didn't notice its absence, at first, after cutting and pasting it from the OP.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";