Bifacial Technology in Central-South Patagonia: A Preliminary Insight into Hunter-Gatherer Behavior during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and Early Holocene in the Deseado Massif and Nearby Spaces.

FRANCO, NORA VIVIANA

Virtual

Congreso; 86th Annual Meeting Society for American Archaeology; 2021

Society for American Archaeology

Bifaces can be useful in different kinds of situations. For example, they can be part of a curated strategy for peopling of new environments, as well as during their colonization. The knowledge of their distribution around the landscape, taking into account raw materials involved as well as their manufacturing stages and discard causes, compared with lithics availability, can be useful for the understanding of hunter-gatherers’ technological organization as well as their distribution of activities around the landscape. We will analyze here the case of the initial occupations of the Deseado Massif and nearby spaces, areas with different resource distribution. According to available evidence, early human occupations of these spaces took place during a period more humid than today. The analysis is based on the integration of stratigraphic and surface material, and takes into account technomorphological as well as raw material variations in bifaces through time.