Record of starches in archaeological mills of the Argentinean Northwest

BABOT, M. DEL PILAR; WRSCHMIDT, ALEJANDRA E.

Tafí del Valle, Tucumán

Jornada; XVI Annual Scientific Meeting, Tucuman Biology Society; 1999

Asociación de Biología de Tucumán

In the last decade the analysis of micro-vestiges, like phytolits and starches has contributed with new data about the resurces used in the past, starting from their discovery in archaeological sediments and arctifacts, as milling-stones.  In many cases this has allowed to determine the functions that those tools have. On this base two archaeological mills coming from the sites of Los Viscos (Catamarca, Argentina) and Cueva de Los Corrales (Tucumán, Argentina) was studied to identify the residuals present, and to be able to define the function of the lithic arctifacts. The remains were coloured with a iodine solution to facilitate the visualization of starches, and they were observed in a Zeiss-Axioskop microscope, with parallel and cross nicols.  The starch grains were compared with current and archaeological reference samples of Chenopodium sp., Zea mays and Solanum sp., determining their similarity in size and morphology with those corresponding to pseudocereals. The use of mills was related with the prossecement of pseudocereals grains for making floury preparations.  This also allow us to states that the micro-rests analysis is a complementary strategy for the determination of the taxons present in archaeological contexts.