CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The extreme dryness of the site Cerro Casa de Piedra 7 (CCP7) (9390 ± 40 BP to 3480 ± 70 BP) ?province of Santa Cruz, Argentina-, allowed the recovery of abundant plant material, such as wood charcoal, wood, fruits, seeds, leaves, fragments of bark and wooden artifacts. This fact, together with the long occupation sequence of the site (Aschero, 1996; Civalero et al., 2006-2007), both infrequent situations in Patagonia, has allowed us to study the role of plant resources in the subsistence strategies of the hunter-gatherers of the area. The overall objective of this paper is, first, to study plant resources exploitation dynamics in a context of high residential mobility and, second, to analyze the effects of environmental changes and its degree of influence in relation to the plant obtaining strategies over time. The archaeobotanical record of CCP7 shows peculiarities such as a wide variety of taxa towards the earliest moments of occupation of the cave, which is not seen in the more recent levels. Among the anthracological remains (Nothofagus pumilio, Escallonia ruba, Berberis sp., Anarthrophyllum rigidum, among others) were the most frequent taxa; while in the specific case of carpological remains, desiccated and carbonized fruits of Empetrum rubrum (murtilla) and Carex spp., among others, were some of the most relevant. It is thought that the first may have been used as food during the Early/Middle Holocene, due to the fact that Empetrum rubrum fruit parts were found in human coprolites recovered from the same archaeological site (Martinez Tosto et al., 2012). Finally, the information presented here allow us to a better understanding of the CCP7 surrounding environment along time and the type of interrelationships established between hunter-gatherers and the forest/steppe

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