New results of interaction between Homo sapiens, carnivores and megafauna in the Pampean region (Argentina) during the first American peopling

CHICHKOYAN KARINA VANESA

Otro; Postgraduate Zooarchaeology Forum (PZAF); 2015

Pampean megafaunal collections housed in different museums in Europe and Argentina are being taphonomically analyzed. This study has revealed anthropic cut marks and carnivore intervention in different taxon of extinct groups, like Megatherium sp., Mylodontidae, Macrauchenia patachonica and Glyptodontidae among others. Also several bones with pathologies have been detected. This can be linked to the fact that this fauna was in an ecological crisis, because of the changing conditions characteristic of the Pleistocene- Holocene transition in the region. This information allows to reconstruct the paleoecological relationships that Homo sapiens established with the native fauna in the first American dispersal. Through hunting or scavenging actions humans have intervened as a new competitor and predator over a decadent fauna, producing modifications and/or colonization of the native niches. This could have implied the extinction of several stocks characteristic of the Quaternary period. Consequently, this perspective allows to get deep into the way that humans have impacted over a paleoenvironment not used to this presence. This situation contrast with other continents like Europe that had several Homo sp. interventions before the introduction of our specie.