Humans as an Invasive Species in the Peopling of the Americas

LANATA JOSÉ LUIS; CHICHKOYAN KARINA VANESA; DE MICCO CELESTE

Encuentro; 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; 2012

Homo sapiens is considered an invasive species that developed a different paleocological niche related with the fluctuating environment and the new native faunal species, particularly with the megafaunal, during dispersal. During the initial entry in the Americas, humans movements were randomly oriented in space, and probably did not need to complete colonize an environment before moving to another. For better understanding, it is necessary to combine biological, archaeological and paleontological aspects, leading to an innovative advance in this area. As a first step, taphonomical analyses are underway over Pampa- Patagonia different megafaunal collections, in Argentina and European museums, to assess the human-faunal relationship. The results will be interpreted in a new ecological point of view, the theory of biological  invasions, and so we will deal with the dynamics of the peopling of America.