Temporal trends in faunal exploitaition by hunter-gatherers in the central pampean dunefields of Argentina

PABLO MESSINEO; NAHUEL SCHEIFLER; MARÍA CLARA ALVAREZ

Ankara

Congreso; 13th International Conference for Archaeozoology; 2018

Middle East Technical University

The economy of hunter-gatherers in the Pampean region for the last 12,500 years BP has been defined almost exclusively on the zooarchaeological record. However, for the construction of these some areas of the region did not provide relevant archaeofaunal information. The main goals are to highlight temporal variation in the exploitation of faunal resources and to propose the first subsistence pattern in shallow lake environments in the Central Pampean Dunefields during the Holocene. In this occasion, we report and integrate novel quantitative faunal information (NISP, Ntaxa) and index of diversity and abundance (taxonomic richness and heterogeneity) from four stratified archaeological sites (La Susana 1, Laguna de los Pampas, Laguna Cabeza de Buey 2, and Huencú Nazar). The chronological range of these archaeological contexts include the early Middle Holocene (7400 -6800 years BP), the late Middle Holocene (5900-4150 years BP) and the Late Holocene (3000-500 years BP). The results indicate the presence of a wide variety of species exploited during the beginning of the Middle Holocene (higher values of diversity), a similar tendency to other areas of the Pampa region. During the last part of the Middle Holocene the subsistence trend was oriented towards artiodactyls (mainly the camelid Lama guanicoe). In the Late Holocene the diversity values increase slightly, although the Lama guanicoe continues being the main exploited species with other small animals used secondarily. Also, these changes in the indices of diversity and abundance are linked to the dynamics of these shallow lake environments and the functionality of the sites.