The exploitation of Rheidae in Pampa and Patagonia (Argentina) as recorded by chroniclers, naturalists and voyagers

SALEMME MONICA; FRONTINI, ROMINA

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Elsevier

Lugar: New York; Año: 2011 vol. 30 p. 473 - 483

0278-4165

Documents from chroniclers, naturalists and voyagers that traveled across the Pampas and Patagonia 2424 (Argentina) between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries are analyzed with the aim of building mate- 2525 rial expectations about the profit of Rheidae used by the historical known natives. This corpus of data is 2626 treated as a heuristic tool in the study of local hunter?gatherer?s archaeological sites, since bones and 27hunter?gatherer?s archaeological sites, since bones and 27 eggshells of rheids are recorded in most of the Pampean and Patagonian archaeological contexts from 2828 early to late Holocene times. Although remains of specimens of this ostrich-like family conforms a small 2929 portion of the whole archaeofaunal assemblages, chronicler?s narratives describe an intensive and pref- 3030 erential use of the ñandú (rheas) by the natives. The proposal considers that it is possible to use the eth- 3131 nohistorical record as a tool to generate material expectations by means of analogies, in the same way 3232 that the ethnographical, ethnoarchaeological and experimental studies are used. However, difficulties 3333 appear when applying the ethnohistorical information to the archaeological record, considering that 3434 those descriptions are involved in analytical categories related to the voyager?s historical and social 3535 contexts. 3636