. Artifactual and environmental related variations in Fuego-Patagonia.

CARDILLO, M., J. CHARLIN, Y K. BORRAZZO

Works in Stone: Contemporary Perspectives on Lithic Analysis

University of Utah Press

Lugar: Salt Lake City; Año: 2015; p. 166 - 177

Fuego-Patagonia is the southernmost region of South America. The peopling of this part of the continent occurred around 10-12,000 yr BP. At that time, the island of Tierra del Fuego was intermittently connected to the mainland by a narrow land bridge. The availability of this connection has been referred as ?windows of opportunity? for the human terrestrial colonization of Tierra del Fuego (McCulloch et al. 1997). The earliest evidence for human presence on the mainland came from Fell, Cueva del Medio, and Lago Sofía archaeological sites (Bird 1938, 1946, 1988; Nami 1986-86, 1987; Prieto 1991). For Tierra del Fuego, Tres Arroyos is the only known site which includes late Pleistocene occupations (Massone 1987, 2004). These earliest settlements on both the mainland and the island correspond to land hunter-gatherers with a diet centered on the consumption of the wild camelid guanaco (Lama guanicoe), which was the main resource exploited until historical times (Bird 1988; Massone 1987, 2004). A common projectile point technology was also in use in the study region at that time (Fishtail projectile point, Bird 1938, 1946; Jackson 1987). After 9,000 yr BP, sea level definitively flooded the terrestrial connection, forming Magellan Strait and Tierra del Fuego Island (Clapperton 1992; McCulloch et al. 1997). Since then terrestrial hunter-gatherers populations inhabiting the region were divided and isolated by the Strait. The impact of the formation of this biogeographic barrier on human groups is the main tenet of the Hypothesis of Cultural Divergence proposed by Borrero (1989-90). This paper is part of an exploratory research programme aimed at assessing the diversity of lithic assemblages recovered within southern Fuego-Patagonia, in areas adjacent to Magellan Strait (Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego provinces, Argentina, Figure 12.1). Here we focus on the study of late Holocene stone tools in order to assess the relationship between environmental and spatial variation, and the relative abundance, and composition of the artifactual repertoire.