EARLY HOMO SAPIENS, AND THE NATIVE FAUNA EXTINCTION IN THE SOUTH AMERICA SOUTHERN CONE

CHICHKOYAN KARINA VANESA, BELINCHÓN MARGARITA, MARTÍNEZ-NAVARRO, Y LANATA JOSÉ LUIS,

Burgos

Congreso; XVII World UISPP Congress 2014; 2014

XVII World UISPP Congress 2014

Dispersion is a survival Homo sapiens adaptive strategyto confront variable environmental stresses in differentspaces. To compare how it developed in diverse paleoecologicalsettings is useful in order to understand howthis adaptive capacity was used in niche construction ormodification. Resources to be exploit, competency withother species and passing through different climatic orgeological barriers, are keys items in this question.America is an excellent opportunity to understand howdispersion was, in a landscape free from previous Homininiintervention. Focus emphases over the PampeanRegion, Argentina, located at 36º S and 64 W. Homo sapienswould have created new niches of predation whichwould have allowed a fast dispersion timing.Taphonomical analysis was done in Rodrigo Botet Collectionhoused in the Museo de Ciencias Naturales deValencia, Spain. This is the result of non-systematic excavationsdone at the north-eastern sector of the PampasRegion at the end of XIX century. Taphonomical historyof these bones, species and squeletal parts can give informationabout agents involved in its burial, ecologyof the native fauna and its habitat. This evidence can berelated with human?s movements into the region at acoarse-grain level and thus understand how ecologicalrelationship were constructed.11,466 elements were analysed, from which 10 elements,coming from different species, were detectedshowing different kinds of anthropic traces: four Mylodontidaebones, one Megatherium sp. rib and other twofrom Macrauchenia patachonica, three osteoderms withpentagonal and hexagonal shape, one from Glyptodontidaeand two from Eutatus.These native fauna developed during Pleistocene timesand extinct just after humans colonized the region ?exceptEutatus, which survived until recent times. Becauseits size, they have low carnivore predation and consequentlyfew avoidance behaviours. Also slow sexual maturityand low reproduction structure. In these populations,stressed by paleoenvironmental changes, sporadichuman predation could have influenced its extinction.Dispersion into empty Hominini continents constituteda new ecological situation into human?s evolution.Therefore different dispersion dynamics can be comparedand evaluated between first entries of humansin South America and Iberic Peninsula. While in Europeearly Homo sapiens dispersions could have taken at least10.000 years, in America, the dispersion would havebeen fastest, between 3.000 or 2.000 years.This contrast with the general idea that fast dispersionis favored with previous knowledge. This should havehappened in Europe, were previous hominid incursionshappened since early Pleistocene. America, in return,was an uninhabited. Recognition of resources and geophormsshould have taken longer time.