Site formation processes through surface bone assemblages in the Fuegian steppe (Argentina)

ORÍA JIMENA; SALEMME, MÓNICA; VAZQUEZ, MARTÍN

San Rafael, Mendoza

Congreso; 12a International Conference on Archaeozoology; 2014

Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael

Concentrations of archaeological material on the ground surface, coming from gullies and hollow deflations related to shallow lake coasts, become a challenge to the study of site formation processes, particularly in relation to the burial and exhumation of materials. Analysis of bone assemblages coming from three different Fuegian contexts (Tres Marías, Amalia 4 and Arturo 1) are herein analyzed, pointing to the features and alterations that reveal their taphonomic histories. The goal is to contribute to two main items such as the discrimination between cultural materials from those naturally deposited and to identify the agents involved in the process of burial and exposition of those contexts presently at the surface. Geomorphological landscapes vary from each site, being represented by hollow deflations close to the shallow lakes as well as gullies originated from the coast itself. The assemblages are mostly dominated by Lama guanicoe (a South American camelid) bones; variability in taxonomic composition, weathering profiles and evidence of anthropic modifications, among other records, demonstrate different depositional events. The obtained results suggest a high variability in pre- and post-depositional origins, considering their complex taphonomic histories which make it difficult the interpretation not only of the human activities, but also their chronologies.