Technological Changes in Patagonia: Debitage Analysis at Chorrillo Malo 2 Site (Upper Santa Cruz River Basin).

FRANCO, NORA VIVIANA; VETRISANO, LUCAS

Portland, Oregon

Congreso; 88th SAA Annual Meeting, Society for American Archaeology; 2023

Society for American Archaeology

Recent researches have shown the presence of technological and, in some cases, chronological discontinuities in the archaeological record of Central-South Patagonia from the Pleistocene–Holocene transition to the Late Holocene. Most of these changes have been recognized on lithic tools. In this presentation, we use debitage analysis to produce useful information for the interpretation of these changes. We analyze the case of Chorrillo Malo 2, the site with the longest human occupation span identified in the upper Santa Cruz River basin. Although initial human occupations at this site date from ca. 11,200 cal yr BP, the adoption of the Levallois centripetal method (sensu Boëda 1993) was identified at the beginning of the Late Holocene. Due to the small size of the sample, a technological analysis was performed, although only a fraction of the assemblage provides diagnostic information in terms of debitage identification. Results obtained indicated the beginning of the utilization of this method on immediately available rocks at ca. 4400 cal yr BP, at around the same time it occurs 95 km to the south, and poses questions about the reasons for this innovation, which does not seem to be related to environmental ones.