Caves and rock shelters at Patagonia: livings, chapels or faunistic traps

LAURA MIOTTI

México, D. F.

Simposio; International Council of Archaeo Zoology (ICAZ); 2006

ICAZ y Universidad Nacional de México

            Caves and rock shelters have played a significant role in the history of archeology; from being mines for artifacts, especially of perishable materials to being thought of as a panacea for developing chronologies. However, these special loci were always occupied by people; bird of prey (owls, falcons, etc.) and mammalians (predators and deeper) such as jaguars, phanters, fox, armadillos or rodents used them us dens.             Rock shelters became significant sources of human, taphonomic and palaeoenvironmental data commensurate with the development of archaeology. Rock shelters are unique features of the landscape in that they offer naturally produced shelter lasting innumerable generations. However, shelters vary among themselves nearly as much as they vary from other (notable open air) archaeological manifestations. For these and other reasons rockshelters have always held a special place in archaeology, with the Patagonian shelters providing a catalyst for developing special analytical and interpretive techniques for maximizing the information potential from their investigations. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a zooarchaeologial overview of today?s rockshelter studies in Southern Plateau of Patagonia. In particularly their results point out taphonomic and cultural aspects about their use in the Past; moment these shelters was occupied by hunter gatherers and/or predators.