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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]

In this paper the results of techno-morphological analysis of shell beads from Northern Patagonia, stored in J. B. Ambrosetti Ethnographic Museum, are presented. It is a set of 42 shell beads from the north coast of San Matías Gulf (Río Negro Province), one from the Pilcaniyeu area (Río Negro Province), and a fragment of leather with shell beads sewed on it recovered nearby Sierra Cuadrada (Chubut Province). The operational chains involved in their production are proposed. We also discussed the implications of different metrics variables (shell bead diameter, thickness and perforation size diameter) to assess standardization. It is proposed that while shape and diameter of shell beads depend on the choice of artisan, the thickness, and perforation size would be determined mainly by the characteristics of the raw material (mainly thickness of the shells), and by the technique and instrument used, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of its importance for rock art studies, rock art motifs coding and classification process is not always made explicit. In this discussion of the process of rock art classification, we consider an exploratory research employing two different criteria for the coding of a northwestern Patagonian rock art motifs database. One coding makes use of a 'lumping' criterion, and the other uses a 'splitting' criterion. Each of these criteria will be evaluated using cladistic analysis, recording how each coding criterion affects results. As a conclusion, and given our results, the use of more than one coding criterion is suggested when classifying rock art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, researchers have invoked the combined effects of demographic pressures and environmental productivity to explain why the inner forest of north-central Argentine Patagonia was occupied later than more favorable spaces, with a maximum age of 3500 cal years BP. The data from the Early and Middle Holocene occupation of Población Anticura, an archaeological site located in the mixed forest, allow us to reformulate this scenario. The analyses of sediments, taphonomy, site formation processes, and the archaeological evidence shows that hunter-gatherer occupations of the forest were short and temporally redundant, characterized by small but varied artifactual assemblages, a subsistence based on the huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus), and the occasional use of species with small body size for food and as raw material. The provenance of some materials suggests that the early excursions into the forest were linked to wide circulation networks in the context of low human demography. The nature of the occupations also shows a familiarity with the forest, suggesting that the oldest contexts of Población Anticura do not reflect the first stages of its exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]