CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Antropogenic modication of the landscape during the Late Holocene: Mound contructions in the upper delta of the Paraná River, Argentine. The construction of earth mounds (locally called cerritos or túmulos), are one of the main characteristics of the South Ame-rican Lowland archaeology record. The presence of this landscape feature in the Paraná River Delta and the archaeological materials from them captured academic attention since the end of the 19th Century. From that time until the present, dis-cussion about the origins of the mounds has been the cause of strong debate in the archaeological community. The different approaches range from those who believe that the mounds are the result of development on naturally elevated areas, domestic and funerary activity vs. those who propose a fully anthropogenic genesis. In order to discriminate human intervention in the origin and evolution of the mounds, we present and discuss results of stratigraphic, sedimentological and biocomposi-tional analysis. These analysis allowed us to recognize clear differences in textural, mineralogical and biosiliceous content of the mound sediments regarding the natural strata, surface and subsurface where they are erected. The results from our studyallowed us to propose that during the Late Holocene indigenous societies that occupied the Delta Area, selected, modified and added to the naturally available sediments, fragments of ceramics, organic materials and burned land to increase and consoli-date earth mound structures.