Stone tools and ritual uses: Analysis of the lithic assemblage of Calera site (Northwest of Tandilia hills, Pampa Grassland, Argentine).

PAL, N.; MESSINEO, P.; ALVAREZ, M.

Nice

Otro; XIII AWRANA; 2018

AWRANA

Calera site, located in an intermountain valley in the northwest of Tandilia Hills (Pampa grassland, Argentina), has been interpreted as a ritual context constituted by pits intentionally excavated, which were filled with large amounts and varieties of offerings and ceremonial trash. This site was generated as the result of several rituals performed during band aggregation periods that started at the beginning of the Late Holocene (ca. 3400 years 14C BP) and continued at least until ca. 1750 years 14C BP, suggesting that Calera was used for similar purposes for approximately 1650 years. In this poster we present the result of use-wear analysis carried out on orthoquartzite and chert tools recovered from several pits of this site with the main aim of identifying the production and consumption activities during the rituals. Linked to the types of lithic raw materials, tools made in non-local orthoquartzite present greater variability in the processing of resources and in the activities developed while tools made in local chert were used for a smaller amount of tasks. Also, the analysis of lithic tools allowed us to identify different productive processes: long retouched edges were used to develop a wide variety of tasks (cutting wood and soft vegetable, scraping hide and wood, among others); in contrast, short retouched and natural edges were used to a narrow range of activities. To sum up, hunter-gatherer groups that inhabited Calera used different kinds of lithic tools to process a great diversity of resources that were employed in the rituals and feasts performed in an area of great cultural significance in the past.