New surveys along the middle basin of the Quequén Grande River, Pampas Region (Argentina)

GUTIERREZ, M. A.; MARTINEZ, GUSTAVO; ÁLVAREZ, M. C.; KAUFMANN, C. A.; RAFUSE, D. J.

Albuquerque

Congreso; 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; 2019

Society for American Archaeology

During the last 30 years, archaeological research in the middle course of the Quequén Grande River, Pampas region (Argentina), has provided a wealth of data, both in the density of recorded archaeological sites, and in its chronological representation, which spans from the Late Pleistocene to Late Holocene (10,250--1500 14C years BP). This is true of the archaeological localities Paso Otero and Zanjón Seco. Given this background, new surveys carried out recently in areas near these localities assumed the finding of a significant number of sites with diverse chronologies. However, the recorded findings did not yield the results according to these expectations. In this paper we discuss the disparity in results found along different sectors of the river. The number of findings recorded on the surface is the result of lower archaeological visibility than those often recorded decades ago, produced by changes in the modern plowing methods (no-till farming). The lack of materials registered in stratigraphic position (sites located along the river banks) likely corresponds to a predominance, in some sectors of the stratigraphic sequences, of deeper sections of paleo-lakes, not feasible for human occupation, and with a low representation of stable buried soils.