Broad-Spectrum Foraging, Trade, and Lithic Technology: A First Approach to the Slab Stone Tools from Prehispanic Sierras of Córdoba, Argentina

SARIO, GISELA; SALVATORE, MARCOS; COSTANTINO, FLORENCIA; PASTOR, SEBASTIÁN; MEDINA, MATÍAS E.

Lithic Technology

Maney Publishing

Año: 2023 p. 1 - 15

0197-7261

The article presents the study of the slab stone tools collected at the San Roque locality (Sierras ofCórdoba, Argentina), a poorly known tool type that merits more detailed studies. . The assemblagewas also analyzed from a technological-functional point of view, but the source of raw materialswas also investigated to infer the range of past mobility and/or the size of trade networks. Themajor cost of tools was represented by the systematic acquisition of the raw material from thequarries located 25–200 km rather than by manufacturing. Technological attributes and usewear on active edges suggest that they were broad-functional tools linked to the need for abroad-spectrum adaptative strategy that required diverse tools for processing a wide variety offoodstuff and their by-products. The landfall of crop plant cultivation ca. 1200 years BP,probably increased the need for this tool type, reinforcing pre-existent trade networks for rawmaterial acquisition.