Pecked and polished materials from southern Patagonia: An experimental techno-functional approach.

ALVAREZ SONCINI, M. C; MANSUR M . E.

Burgos

Congreso; XVII UISPP World Congress; 2014

Fundación Atapuerca

Utilization of polishing and pecking techniques has often been associated with the emergence of Neolithic contexts. However, it is now well known that these techniques were also appliedby hunter-gatherer societies, sometimes for the manufacture of stone artifacts, such as clubs, weights or balls, others to make artifacts in different raw materials, such as wood, shell or bone (beads, knives, retouchoirs, harpoons, awls, etc.).In South America, pecking and polishing techniques appear in hunter-gatherers contexts since about 10,000 years BP. Identification of materialsmade by pecking and polishing techniques is not always easy, particularly in the case of those which do not have defined morphologies, where it can be difficult to distinguish taphonomic and technological traces. The approach to these materials has usually been performed descriptively, due to the lack of a techno-morphological and functional analytic framework. Consequently, it is also difficult to evaluate the role that these materials had within the technological strategies implemented by hunter-gatherer societies. The aim of this paper is to present some results of a research about polished and pecked materials in hunter-gatherers contexts of southern Patagonia.We will focus especially on the analysis of manufacturing and utilization techniques.