Search

This paper presents the results of excavations conducted at the Late Gravettian site of Lubná VI in 2012 and 2018. This site is an exceptional example of a short-term Late Gravettian campsite, occupied between 27.5 and 27.1 ka cal BP. Due to the specific location of this site, in an area situated far from lithic raw material sources, the archaeological remains offer a rare possibility to understand the subsistence strategy of highly mobile hunter-gatherers in the Late Pleistocene. The knapped lithic assemblage is composed of erratic Cretaceous flint imported over long distances, and the tool inventory is typical of Late Gravettian assemblages from Central Europe, with a dominance of burins and backed implements. However, the lack of chert and flint raw material in the vicinity of the site inspired the occupants to use bladelet blanks to make hunting weaponry from burin spalls. This specific behaviour is unique among Gravettian inventories known from the western Carpathians. Reindeer dominate the faunal assemblage over other species. The season of occupation at Lubná VI was probably early autumn, and may be associated with the maximum use of environmental resources by the hunter-gatherers. The small campsite was located at a convenient spot for processing reindeer carcasses, where some hearth stone constructions were arranged. Because there was no woody vegetation in the closest vicinity of the site, reindeer bones and fat were used as fuel in hearths. Given the lack of nearby flint raw materials, the accessibility of large numbers of reindeer near Lubná, probably present on a seasonal basis, explains the occurrence of Late Gravettian occupation in this micro-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeological site of Checua is located at the north end of the Sabana de Bogotá, Northern South America. New archaeological research at the site has revealed significant evidence of well-preserved hunters and gatherers' funerary contexts which date back to 7580-5052 BP (cal 2σ). Former studies reported 33 human interments, and a recent excavation at the site revealed 24 additional individuals distributed in 18 ritual burials. In this occasion, a taphonomy-focused archaeothanatological protocol was implemented to determine the nature of the burials and to inquire into post-mortem manipulations of the bodies. This analysis revealed unknown funerary practices among hunters and gatherers in the region, such as occasional wrappings of the corpses before their disposal, unconventional rearrangements of the bodies in secondary burials, as well as intentional and well-planned post-depositional manipulations in primary inhumations. In this paper we select a sample of 10 individuals to illustrate the results of this analysis, and we highlight the relevance of archaeothanatology to obtain high-resolution data of mortuary practices. Here we focus on the process of ritualization by exploring the ways in which the living dealt with the dead by means of diverse treatments of human bodies and posthumous arrangements of graves. We argue that the study of these funerary practices opens up a wider range of possibilities to discuss how the living faced the experience of remembrance as they commemorated death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we focus on the regional/local scale of the archaeological record of the Central-West area of Chubut (Argentinean Patagonia) through the characterization of its regional taphonomy, considered from an archaeological perspective. We focus our research in the comparison of three different landscape situations: 1) a slope leading to highlands, 2) an azonal vegetal community (wetland or mallín ), and 3) a salt lake. Our main goal is to compare those situations, in order to determine the main taphonomic factors that regulate the archaeological material distribution in those locales. The ultimate goal is to address how past hunter–gatherers inhabited these landscapes. We depart from the assumption that distributions of artifacts are mainly explained by the action of post-depositional processes. To evaluate this assumption first we postulate a series of hypothesis and expectations for each locale, considering the main post-depositional agents present in them, and we evaluated if the patterns of material distributions can be explained by one or many of those processes. Only if explanation cannot be achieved by them, we recurred to human depositional activities. As a result we managed to explain most of the archaeological distributions in terms of post-depositional processes. Only in two cases we propose that human deposition occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss hunter–gatherers' logistical mobility strategies in Central-Western Santa Cruz province during the last 2500 years BP, in a context of human adaptations to semi-desert conditions. The approach to the archaeological record is focused on integrating three independent lines of evidence: technology, zooarchaeological and anthracological analysis. Logistical mobility will be addressed focusing on two main aspects: resources transportation and variability of archaeological contexts. The observed variability has allowed shedding light on the use of the category “logistical” used to describe plateaus. Additionally, these areas show a well-planned and scheduled use during a regional process of desiccation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed zooarchaeological study conducted on the bone assemblage from the Laguna Cabeza de Buey 2 site, located on the margins of a small shallow lake in the center of the Pampa grasslands (province of Buenos Aires, Argentina). Taxonomic structure, taphonomic information, site formation processes, and subsistence strategies for different occupation events are described and discussed. At least three events of pre-Hispanic occupation (two in the Middle Holocene [6800 and 4150 14C years BP] and one in the Late Holocene) and one in Historical moments were identified. Human occupations are developed in relation to a shallow lake under a climate more arid during the Middle Holocene, which decreased up to the current environmental conditions; humid temperate. The camelid Lama guanicoe (guanaco) was always the most important economic resource during the three events of human occupation in the Holocene, followed by Ozotoceros bezoarticus (pampean deer) and, to a lesser extent, by three species of small armadillos ( Chaetophractus sp., Zaedyus pichiy , and Tolypeutes matacus ). In Historical times, modern domestic faunal remains ( Equus caballus and Bos taurus ) were exploited. A subsistence strategy focused on artiodactyls, mainly guanaco, allows suggesting certain specialization through time in the exploitation of animal resources by hunter-gatherer groups in the center of the Pampa grasslands, strategy that contrasts with what is recorded in other areas of the Pampean region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses provisioning strategies of lithic raw materials at Maripe Cave site (province of Santa Cruz, Argentina). The archaeological sequence represents different moments of human occupation at the cave and in the study area, which show different lithic technologies. The morpho-typological analysis of the lithic cores recovered contributes to our knowledge about the strategies related to procurement and provisioning of the lithic raw materials used for artifacts production. We identified different raw materials from the analyses of lithic cores and other artifacts from the site. This allowed analyzing trends in selection and provisioning processes and interpreting the mobility strategies of the groups that inhabited the Deseado Massif since the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Trends suggest that, during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition and early Holocene, abandoned cores from Maripe Cave mainly indicate people provisioning strategies. During middle Holocene, the cores shows blades extractions and raw material use from long distance, discarded with remaining potential utility. Finally, at late Holocene the cores were mainly prepared for blade extractions. Our results do not fully agree with Kuhn's proposal, probably due to both the theoretical polarization between the provisioning strategies and the palimpsest effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological investigations carried out in the area of San Blas Bay revealed a great number of surface concentrations of shells, lithic artifacts and in lesser amount, ceramic remains. These places have been occupied by hunter–gatherers from the middle Holocene to recent times. In some cases, cultural materials and combustion structures have been reported in stratigraphic position. In this paper, we present the analysis of a hearth in a cup shape structure located in a sand aeolian deposit, in the La Serranita archaeological site, dated from 5300 BP, compared with another hearth from Las Olas 5 site, dated from 500 BP. The aim is to infer the activities that could be carried out in relation to the combustion structures, by physical–chemical analysis of sediments, and by identifying and quantifying the microremains. An attempt is made to determine the intensity of use of the fire structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The initial human occupation and colonization of island areas are linked to a set of ideas and assumptions about when and how these processes occur. This paper discusses these ideas in light of archaeological evidence from the Araucanian islands (in Southern Chile) with regard to the different trajectories experienced there mostly by hunter–gatherer groups. The evidence indicates that rather than presenting a homogeneous and shared regional pattern, each island represents a particular trajectory of human history. This is represented by differing dates for the earliest human presence on each island, as well as distinct processes of abandonment and re-occupation. In addition, despite a long history of prior hunter–gatherer occupations, these islands were ultimately colonized solely by food-producer groups. This highlights the importance of considering factors such as the cultural construction of space and the constraints it places on inhabitants and their technology, as well as a population's dynamic history in terms of its relationship with the mainland and the island(s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes and discusses the main results achieved over three decades of research on paleodemographic aspects of Late Holocene hunter-gatherers in Northwestern Santa Cruz (Argentina). Research has been guided by a model of regional settlement that proposes that, as a result of the progressive aridization process recorded in Patagonia during the Late Holocene, human groups would have reduced their residential mobility and concentrated their settlements in low altitude basins with water availability, such as Lake Cardiel and Lake Salitroso. Paleodemographic questions derived from the model relate to population regional continuity and dynamics and were tested using several lines of research at regional and local scales. The assessment of the chronological information and temporal trends of the archaeological record at the regional level allowed for a coarse grain paleodemographic approach, and acted as a mean to support hypotheses related to changes in mobility and land use strategies. Building on this, several lines of bioarchaeological evidence were used to address paleodemographic aspects of the model, including temporal, distributional, and compositional studies of the mortuary record, isotopic, morphometric and DNA analyses and the sex and age structure of the skeletal samples recovered in Lake Salitroso basin. Results point to a biological and cultural population continuity in the region during the Late Holocene. Also, a reduction in residential mobility would have favored a slight population growth of Lake Salitroso populations during the last millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]