Decoding the microvertebrate record in Alero Los Viscos (Catamarca, Argentina): a taphonomic investigation of the surface bone assemblage.

MARIANA MONDINI; CAROLINA MOREANO; CLAUDIA I. MONTALVO; CAROLINA MADOZZO-JAÉN; PABLO ORTIZ; M. FORENCIA ARIAS

Congreso; 3rd Meeting of the ICAZ Microvertebrate Working Group; 2020

Alero Los Viscos is an archaeological site located in El Bolsón Valley (Catamarca, Argentina), an arid region of the South-Central Andes, at 2470 m.a.s.l. It is a 380 m2 rockshelter containing stonewalled structures, which was occupied since ca. 1220 BP. The faunal record includes many microvertebrate remains, especially on the modern surface and in the upper stratigraphic layers (dated to ca. 600-400 BP), where they may be intrusive. Use of the rockshelter by predator birds and, to a lesser extent, carnivores is indicated by the presence of perches over the rocky walls and pellets and scats on the modern surface.Surface bones of rodents, birds, didelphids, armadillos, and anurans, accumulated over the last 600 years at the most, display clear digestive traces. To help disentangle the complex formation history of the most recent faunal record of the site and assess the actors involved, we performed a taphonomic analysis of 243 micromammal skeletal elements collected from the site modern surface over different field seasons.