Fishtail Projectil Points from Central Argentina.

LAGUENS, A.; PAUTASSI, E.; SARIO,G.; CATTANEO, GR

CURRENT RESEARCH IN THE PLEISTOCENE

Center for the Study of the First Americans.

Lugar: TEXAS; Año: 2007 vol. 24 p. 54 - 57

Since 2001 archaeologists, bioanthropologists, geologists, and paleontologists are carrying out a project about the human peopling of the Sierras of Córdoba and San Luis ranges, at NW of the Pampas in central Argentina, during the Pleistocene-Holocene times. Until recently, the available information on the earliest occupations referred to sites with a technology of lanceolate projectile points (known as Ayampitín) dated in 8000 years BP (González 1960), supposedly linked to Andean origins. Nevertheless, the revision of sites discovered in the 19th and 20th century with possible associations of megafauna, lithics, and charcoal, as well as data available on early Holocene settlements in the adjoining regions, allowed us to hypothesize an earlier peopling of the zone.  On the other hand, geomorphological and paleoenvironmental studies at the high plains of the hills (Cioccale 2002) showed that these zones worked as environmental refugees for megafauna at the beginning of the Holocene. Our main research hypothesis maintains that the peopling of the region  initiated in the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary through migration routes of lower cost, with a predominant westward direction, along the main rivers that connect the Sierras de Córdoba and San Luis with the Pampas plains.  In relation to this, bioanthropological studies based on analysis of cranial morphological variation through cluster and matrix correlation analyses demonstrate that the ancient inhabitants of these Sierras show close morphological similarities with the Patagonian and Tierra del Fuego populations (Fabra et al. 2006). Recent archaeological researches in the Sierras de Córdoba range, 200 km northeast in El Alto 3 (Rivero and Roldán 2005), yielded two 14C datings ca. 11,000 years BP. The discovering of fishtail projectile points at Estancia La Suiza 1 (ELS1), an open site in the nearby of a stone quarry (Estancia La Suiza 1, ELS2), opens new expectations. The site is located in the western piedemont of the Sierras de Comechingones in the province of San Luis (32º 56? 55.07? S, 65º 07? 45.07?? W), at the confluence of two creeks in a landscape of smooth and low hills (Figure 1). According the extra-regional information a late-Pleistocene/Early Holocene age is interpreted.