Taphonomic study of modern guanacos (Lama guanicoe) killed by winter stress in Southern Patagonia (Argentina). Archaeological Implications.

BELARDI, J. B.,; L.A. BORRERO,; C.A. KAUFMANN,; M.A. GUTIERREZ; A. MASSIGOGE,

Chicago

Congreso; 87th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; 2021

Society for American Archaeology

During the harsh winter of 2020 a great number of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) died in the interior steppe of South Patagonia. Most of the carcasses were concentrated at places that offered some protection, mostly isolated calafate shrubs (Berberis). The following summer we surveyed a sector of the Middle Basin of the Gallegos River (Argentina) and documented a total of 275 carcasses from an 8 km transect (n = 265) and one separate cluster (n = 10). All of them were examined in the field, recording GPS position, sex, age, carnivore marks, weathering stages, disarticulation, and dispersal of bones, among other variables. Accordingly, conditions for survival and burial of bones were surveyed. We selected two clusters of carcasses for taphonomic longitudinal studies. The aim of our study is focused in understanding the conditions under which such an abundance of carcasses can become part of the fossil record, what are the best markers to infer events of massive death, and discuss their eventual role for human hunter-gatherers. In order to achieve these, in this presentation we will discuss the guanaco mortality profile, in the light of the current and historical weather records, and the pattern of bone preservation.