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This paper shows the preliminary results of the zooarchaeological analysis of Dupuy Rockshelter (La Toma, San Luis Province, Argentina). This rock shelter has evidence of Late Holocene (Last Millennium) human occupation dating from 340 ± 40 BP. Some species, including Lama guanicoe and Ozotoceros bezoarticus , were exploited and their bones were used as raw material to make instruments. The zooarchaeological analysis is complemented by geological and phytoarchaological evidence which indicates a humid environment during the Holocene and a mixed diet that included vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any understanding of contemporary biodiversity change in the Americas is likely to be uninformative and misleading if it employs a prehistoric baseline imbued with pristine characteristics. Archaeological evidence clearly displays a protracted history of environmental transformations at varying geographical and temporal scales throughout the Holocene (that is, the past 10,000 years). Because of problems inherent to the interpretation of the archaeological record, the genesis of these transformations often can only be ambiguously attributed to environmental and/or anthropogenic origins. However, at any given time or place, both the distribution of the numbers of different kinds of organisms and their relative abundances were in a constant state of flux since the retreat of glacial cover some 10,000 years ago. Here I review archaeological evidence to illustrate the dynamism of prehistoric biodiversity, which can be attributed to environmental events, to anthropogenic causation, or as a response of these to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]