Tracking ancient people movements in Sierras Pampeanas of Argentina by XRF, DRX and SEM on lithic technology

CATTANEO ROXANA

Cordoba

Simposio; XIV International Symposium on Radionics; 2018

Society of Radyonics, CEPROCOR, UNC

In the archaeology of the Southern Pampean Hills of Argentina more than one hundred years ago studies have reported the presence of a lithic technology centered on the use of quartz as a predominant raw material for the technology used by the aboriginal people during 10.000 years BP [1,2]. However, little effort has been made to try to characterize its chemical composition to understand the circuits of mobility or the exchange networks in the archaeological sites of the region [3, 4, 5].Even that kind of studies is common for other types of rocks such as obsidian, quartz, due to the high percentage of silica, (up to 99,9%) in this composition was left out. But because the results of provenance studies have allowed us to advance in establish ancient networks and ancient roads we proposed a geochemical characterization of quartz sources and discuss an appropriate set of chemical trace elements useful for comparison between archaeological sites and quarries depending of the geological origin (hydrothermal or pegmatite quartz). We report here such methodology and the results of the chemical characterization of archaeological and geological samples using thin sections studied with a microprobe, X-Ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction. The detection of trace elements of 100 quartz outcrops and its comparison with archaeological artifacts from 8 sites that belong to different chronological periods (from hunter-gatherer societies?ca. 6000 BP?to more recent occupations?ca. 300 BP from the valleys of Ongamira and Copacabana (north of the province of Córdoba, Argentina) are going to be presented.