CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Amongthe Late Quaternary fossil record of Argentina, several sites of eastern edgeof Tandilia hills stand out for its vertebrate richness and abundance. The mostimportant is a group of rocky repairs located in La Vigilancia hill, with humanoccupations. Particularly significant is the record of Cueva Tixi site, whichevolves more than 10.000 years, including levels deposited during the latestPleistocene, and the early-late Holocene. Most of the collection proceeds fromowl pellets; more than 500 samples correspond to small birds and are stillundetermined. The study of bony accumulations provided in the indigestible restof raptor birds has been fully used in present systems diversity studies in thewhole world, taking to account that bird occurrence and abundance are relatedto habitat characters where they are situated. In the case of fossil pellets,this data is meaningful in a paleoenvironmental reconstruction. These recordsare a possibility to amplify the knowledge about late Quaternarypaleodiversity. Besides, the Southeast region of Buenos Aires has provided themore important Cenozoic paleornithological record of Argentina, therefore it isappropriate for comparative faunal analysis by ages. The comparison betweendiversity and abundance of present taxa in fossil/subfossil records and livingcommunities will allow detecting eventual changes in avifauna assemblages and theninfer its possible causes. This analysis has to be done consideringclimatic-environmental changes during the period, human modifications in thelandscape, and the specific ecological requirements of birds. Preliminaryresults of morphological comparisons evidenced the presence of Thinocoridae andTinamidae among skull samples, as well as Icteridae and Thraupidae among thehumerus samples of Passeriformes.