Regional integrations in arid Central West Argentina: trends and expectations from a human paleoecological framework

ADOLFO GIL; MERCEDES CORBAT; FERNANDO JULIÁN FERNÁNDEZ; MIGUEL GIARDINA; ATILIO ZANGRANDO; GUSTAVO NEME; CLARA OTAOLA; LAURA SALGAN; LEANDRO DAVID ROJO; VALERIA CORTEGOSO; VÍCTOR DURÁN; MARTIN SANTIAGO PALMA

University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.

Workshop; International Science Workshop. PAGES FOCUS 4; 2010

Central west Argentina is a semiarid but highly heterogeneous landscape. The human settlement is very heterogeneous with regular size urban centres and a high number of spread households. The economy is variable, farming and pastoral activity occupying the biggest area. Humans arrive to the region during the late Pleistocene 11 Ky BP. Those first populations exploited basically guanaco but other animals were used too. Significant changes in human-strategies occurred during the last 4 Ky, among which we will only mention here change in technology and subsistence. Archaeological studies in southern Mendoza offered scarce information about exploitation of fish in human subsistence patterns. This factor contrasted with tendencies reported for northern regions of the province, and was consistent with the belief of current residents and biologists about the absence in Llancanelo Lagoon of Percichthys (perch) in the past and its introduction in modern times. Nevertheless, recent identifications of this taxon in Llan 17, an archaeological site near the lagoon with a radiocarbon date of ca. 1 Ky BP, show not only the contribution of fish resources in human subsistence, but also the possible native nature of this resource. This archaeological evidence reconsiders the status of "introduced species" of the perch, and raises the need to amend certain aspects of the management plan of resources in the protected area of Llancanelo. On the other hand, the comparison of rodents assamblages of the archaeological record of late Holocene in southern Mendoza with a recent sample of raptor pellets from the same localities, shows that Calomys musculinus and Abrothrix olivaceus abundance has increased in recent times. Possibly, the dominance of these opportunistic species with further remarkable impoverishment of the small mammals diversity took place since the XIX century with the introduction of the domestic livestock, which produced the most important change in the environments during the late Holocene.