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For thousands of years, hunter-gatherer societies from southern and central Patagonia inhabited a Subantarctic landscape. In this paper, we argue against the traditional assumption that these were simple societies. We examine population diversity from ecological, archaeological, and ethno-historical data sources, emphasizing the economic and social variability while considering social change through time. We end by analyzing processes of the development of social complexity and hierarchy in recent times, when the industrial world violently disarticulated those societies. All this evidence suggests levels of social variability and complexity archaeologists have not expected. The paper critically reviews traditional archaeological approaches and suggests new research lines that allow for a better understanding of social dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego include contrasting environments and populations. Both were settled more than 10,000 years ago, although the coastal resources were not intensively exploited until four millennia later. The littoral resource exploitation had very different characteristics on the Atlantic compared to the Magellan-Fuegian coasts. Generalized strategies were maintained in the former, while in the latter the inhabitants developed a specialization—they became intensively dependent on the littoral and marine resources and designed special technological means for their procurement and processing, including navigation capability. This process began some 6,400 radiocarbon years ago and these sea-nomads colonized the southern- most archipelago from the Beagle Channel down to Cape Horn. After synthesizing the settling of Patagonia, this paper focuses on the process of colonization and cultural endurance of the seanomads until the time of European contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]