The Antofagasta de la Sierra basin, Argentina: Current zooarchaeological and taphonomic research and new directions.

MARIANA MONDINI; ELKIN, D. C.

Salt Lake City (EE.UU.)

Congreso; 70th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; 2005

Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the Andean Puna of Argentina, has providedoriginal information on the structure of the archaeofaunal record in thispart of South America, the introduction of humans into the predatorcommunity, and their coevolution with the regional fauna.  Thispresentation summarizes some of the main issues to which localzooarchaeology has contributed: carnivore taphonomy, the human peopling ofthis high-altitude Andean desert, and human adaptations during themid-Holocene.  It analyzes their regional implications, and theirrelevance to issues such as the need of new approaches in zooarchaeologyand taphonomy that consider explanatory arguments at a macro-scale.