A Fossil Bone of a Giant Ground Sloth from the Last Millennium of the Pleistocene: New Data from Salto Department, Uruguay

CHICHKOYAN, KARINA V.; NAMI, HUGO G.; LANATA, JOSÉ L.; TRINDADE, MARIO

Archaeological Discovery

Scientific Research Publishing

Año: 2020 vol. 08 p. 295 - 310

2331-1959

During the Pleistocene-Holocene transition at ~10.0 uncalibrated, or ~11.7calibrated kya, the Americas were undoubtedly inhabited by humans fromnorth to south ends. The groups living in that time had cultural and adaptivedifferences in terms of subsistence and technological pursuits. Particularly inthe southern cone of South America, archaeological remains witnessed hunter-gatherers living at ~11.0 - 10.0 uncalibrated kya. They mostly used theso-called ?fishtail,? or just ?Fell? points, a widespread Paleo-American marker.Despite that, they exploited different faunal species, including extant andextinct fauna. At the Salto Department in the northwestern region of Uruguay,on the Itaperibí Grande creek shore, archaeological remains of bonesand stones were recovered. One of the most remarkable is a fragmented fossilfemur of Lestodon armatus , a mega-mammal giant ground sloth. In its anteriorface, this specimen shows diverse kinds of marks. However, no clear associationamong the findings was documented. Then, in order to check thepossible relationship between the bone and the artifacts, the specimen wassubjected to radiocarbon dating and it was analyzed in detail from a taphonomicperspective to evaluate the origin of the marks. The radiocarbon assayindicates that the specimen belongs to the last millennium of the Pleistocene.The date is relevant as it is one of the few assays obtained on a sample fromthat time. The taphonomic study revealed that the marks were not producedby human activity, hence, its primary relationship with the stone artifacts isuncertain. Despite that, these data make an important contribution to theknowledge about the fauna contemporaneously living with the earliest hunter-gatherer that were foraging the regional landscape during one of the colonizationevents that populated the southern cone of South America.