South American Extintions. A study case: The Rodrigo Botet Collection of the Museum of Natural Science of Valencia, Spain

CHICHKOYAN KARINA VANESA

Assemblage. The Sheffield Graduate Journal of Archaeology

Universidad de Sheffield

Año: 2013 vol. 12 p. 28 - 42

1365-3881

This paper aims to discuss the Pleistocene-Holocene South American megafauna extinctions, taking into account the evidence of bones exhibiting cut marks, identified in the Rodrigo Botet Collection of Valencia, Spain, donated by Rodrigo Botet at the end of the 19th century. Due to the amount of material present and the completeness of some specimens, this Collection is often considered the most important assemblage of South American megafauna fossils housed in Europe. Pleistocene-Holocene mammal extinction is quite a controversial topic and a variety of explanatory arguments have been put forward over the last 30 years. In South America, the loss of such a considerable amount of native fauna, in particular the megafauna, coincided with two important events: Homo sapiens´ expansion onto the continent and the rise of the temperatures, both of which affected the transition. In order to contribute to current understanding of this event, a taphonomical analysis was performed on the Rodrigo Botet Collection and these data were then contextualised with palaeoecological information. The taphonomic appraisal of this archived material was useful in order to identify bones with anthropic cut marks and, thus to provide new data for the debate on the South American megafauna extinction during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.