Unanswered Questions: Exploring Lithic Transport in Tierra del Fuego (Southern South America)

BORRERO, L.A.; BORRAZZO, K.

Buenos Aires

Simposio; 11th International Symposium on Knappable Materials; 2017

IMHICIHU-CONICET

This paper examines the archaeological case study of Miraflores raw materials to explore several alternative causes of lithic transport in Fuego-Patagonia during the Late Holocene. Although Miraflores rocks (tuff and silicified tuff) are naturally available within a restricted area of northern Grande Island of Tierra del Fuego, they were both transported several hundred kilometers away from the source across and outside the island. Macroscopic, petrographic, and geochemical analyses showed that the identification of both raw materials is reliable, while an extensive sampling of Fuegian artifact collections allowed assessing the contribution of these rocks to the overall Fuegian lithic assemblages. The integration of technological data from extant Miraflores artifacts and the archaeological and ethnographic information available for Tierra del Fuego suggests that different factors conditioned the transport of Miraflores. We conclude that most of silicified tuff remains among Fuegian sites represent incidental by-products of mobility while exchange may have had a more prominent role in the distribution of tuff remains.