The contribution of the nineteenth century fossil fauna collections to the debate of First Homo sapiens dispesion in South America

CHICHKOYAN KARINA VANESA

Encuentro; 3rd Young Natural History Scientists Meeting; 2016

Homo sapiensdispersion and its impact in the paleoenvironment is one of the most studiessubjects in archaeology. Americas suppose a special case since it is a landscape free fromprevious Hominini interventions. This had implied novel contacts with nativefauna groups that developed in isolation in this continent such as Xenarthrasand Notoungulata among others. From a paleoecological perspective, our specie wouldhave been a new predator in this continent, producing modifications and/or amplification inthe hunting-scavengingniche. This would have helped to the dispersion of our specie in this newpaleoenvironment. In orderto get deep into this problematic taphonomic andarchaeozoological studies are being realized in different Pampean (Argentina)nineteenth century collections, housed in Argentinean and European museums. Sincethey were extracted with a different procedure that nowadays standards, theycan have potential useful information.Thus biological intervention and pathological deficiencies are beingregistered in different species such as Mylodontidae, Glyptodontidae, Megatherium americanum, or Macrauchenia patachonica among others.They can inform about anthropic and carnivore’s exploitation that could haveleft marks in the bones. These biological marks allow inferring if newrelationships, like predation and/or competition would have been developedamong humans and native fauna. On the other side, the presence of pathologieshelps to contextualize this information, to know the age profile of the sampleand if the animals suffered any stress or trauma in life. This typeof research over nineteenth century collections not only allows revalorizingthese old fossil assemblages, but also, to contribute with new data to currentdebates about our behaviour in the past.