Documenting Patterns and Processes of Evolutionary change in the mid-Holocene Lanceolate Points of the South American Highlands

HERNAN JUAN MUSCIO; MARCELO CARDILLO

Simposio; Rock and Roll: 13th International Symposium on Knappable Materials; 2021

In this contribution we approach the study of the tempo and mode of evolution of theMid- Holocene lanceolate projectile points from the southern Andean Highlands (thePuna of Argentina and the north of Chile). To this end we analyze the formal continuityof some designs of points as well as the temporal overlap of classes and attributesof them. From explicit evolutionary models we discuss patterns of change related todirectional evolution, stasis, or brownian processes. These analyzes show that thefocal data set better supports a Brownian evolution model for some metric charactersas well as the existence of directionality in the length of the lanceolate points with noevidence of character stasis.Through the construction of chronophylograms we show the existence of differencesover time in the rate of innovation of the lithic points and their characters, the increasein the longevity of the classes over time, and a mosaic evolution structure. We proposethat since the beginnings of the Mid-Holocene, a larger hunter gatherer populationalong with the specialization in camelid hunting led to the selective evolution of agreater diversity of classes of points, which over time gave rise to the evolution of pointclasses with greater longevity due to competition. Furthermore, the coexistence of differentweapon systems and hunting strategies with different performance allowedboth greater variability and the non-directional evolution of attributes in the phylogenyof these artifacts.