INCUAPA   23990
INVESTIGACIONES ARQUEOLOGICAS Y PALEONTOLOGICAS DEL CUATERNARIO PAMPEANO
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Early Holocene water well in the Pampas of Argentina: Human responses to water shortage events
Autor/es:
GUSTAVO MARTÍNEZ; MARÍA GUTIÉRREZ
Revista:
The Holocene
Editorial:
SAGE
Referencias:
Año: 2019 vol. 29 p. 145 - 157
ISSN:
1477-0911
Resumen:
Water wells are ethnographically and archaeologically described in Australia and the plains of North America. Recently, a prehistoric water well from the Early Holocene was recorded in the Pampas of Argentina. The aim of this paper is to present the main characteristics of the water well, considering its form, dimension, sediment analyses (texture and chemical parameters), and material culture content. This is the first water well recorded in the Pampas of Argentina. Consequently, a discussion about natural or cultural origins of this kind of features is provided. An evaluation of similarities and differences with well-described water wells from United States and Australia is included in order to highlight the cultural origin of the pit. Also, the meaning of the cultural response to water availability in terms of Early Holocene hunter-gatherers adaptations as well as the implications of this strategy for understanding paleoenvironmental scenarios of the Pampas of Argentina are discussed. The well seems to have mitigated an exceptional lack of surface water in the eastern Pampas or offered an alternative for the non-drinkable quality of the available surface water. The strategy of digging water wells was available in the behavioral repertoire of the Pampean hunter-gatherer populations as early as ca. 8700-8000 14C years BP (ca. 9700-8800 cal. years BP), as these groups were fairly flexible and resilient in dealing with short-term shortages of water.