Social trajectories of hunter- gatherer societies in Central Argentina: exploration and colonization of a desert landscape, La Pampa province, Argentina

BERÓN MÓNICA; MANUEL CARRERA AIZPITARTE; MA. GABRIELA MUSAUBACH

Congreso; WAC 9 T06E: South American archaeology?s contributions to World Archaeological Approaches; 2016

Profuse archaeologicalevidence recovered in La Pampa province, Argentina, which let us understand thetrajectory of the hunter-gatherer groups in a semi-desert environmentthroughout the Holocene, is presented. The first settlements in the regionoffer shallow records in the early and middle Holocene, according to thearchaeological record of the Casa de Piedra 1 site and Tapera Moreira site 1(ca. 8620-4590 years BP). The groups settled in spaces where resources wereconcentrated and circulated in landscapes with varied topographies. Thissituation turns to be more complex in the late Holocene when the exploitationof local resources is emphasized and increases the presence of extra-regionalelements as a sign of large-scale interactions.