Características ambientales del ecotono bosque - estepa durante el Holoceno medio (sudoeste, Santa Cruz, Argentina).

BAMONTE, FLORENCIA PAULA ; MANCINI, MARÍA VIRGINIA

Arqueología de Patagonia: una mirada desde el último confín.

Editorial Utopías

Lugar: Ushuaia; Año: 2009; p. 881 - 892

The pollen analysis from a peat core located in the Subantartic Forest ? Patagonian Steppe ecotone (49º 11´ S; 72º 22´ W) allowed to reconstruct the vegetation changes in response to the climatic change during the Mid Holocene. Radiocarbon dates of 7540 ± 160 and 5717 ± 45 14C years BP are available. The pollen records indicate a predominance of taxa characteristic of the steppe. The oldest samples analyzed are analogous to the present grass steppe of the study area. The shrubs taxa increase towards the top of the sequence; however, there are no analogies either with the forest or with the semi-desert in the study area. In order to achieve a regional paleoenviromental reconstruction, the information obtained was compared to other pollen records from ecotone areas in the southwest of Santa Cruz at 47º S (Parque Nacional Perito Moreno) and 50º S (Cerro Frías and Chorrillo Malo 2). These sequences show a similar trend in the vegetation changes. The results of this research will contribute to increase the knowledge of the complexity and space variability of Holocene climate changes in Patagonia, which have played an important role in the dynamics of vegetation and in the settlement of the region.