Tracking ancient people movements in the Southern Pampean Hills of Argentina by XRF, XRD and SEM on quartz lithic technology: a preliminary report

CATTÁNEO, GABRIELA ROXANA; CAMINOA, JOSÉ MARÍA; COLLO, GILDA; IZETA, ANDRÉS; RUBIO, MARCELO; GERMANIER, ALEJANDRO; FAUDONE, SONIA

Rendiconti Lincei. Scienze Fisiche e Naturali

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei

Lugar: Roma; Año: 2020

2037-4631

Quartz-based hunter-gatherer lithic technology is present around the world. It occurs particularly where the Precambriancrystalline basement outcrops, including South Africa, Northern Europe, North America and large areas of South America.However, little effort has been made to try to characterize its chemical composition to help understand either mobility strategiesor exchange networks. We report here the results of a preliminary methodological approach comparing the chemicalcharacterization of quartz from archaeological sites (quarries and residential types) and geological sources through differenttechniques: X-Ray Fluorescence, X-Ray Diffraction, SEM and EPMA analyses. The detection of trace elements from quartzoutcrops and its comparison with artifacts from residential archaeological sites from the Ongamira valley (a mountainousregion of Central Argentina) was undertaken in this work. The archaeological samples came from layers radiocarbon-datedto the Late Holocene (between ca. 3600 BP to 3000 BP) and are related to nomadic hunter-gatherer societies where the useof quartz for technology was predominant (representing more than 90 percent of the tools and debris in each archaeologicalsite). As a result of the comparison, it was possible to establish positive or negative relationships between some of thequartz samples from the residential locus and the geological sources. Some results showed that the nearest quarries to theresidential sites were not used at the residential camp. On the other hand, it was also possible to establish that non-localquartz outcrops located far away from the Ongamira valley were not present at any of the Ongamira sites. This shows usthat rock procurement was oriented to the selective use of local raw material and therefore a low-range mobility strategy.Finally, it may be related to better local environmental conditions in the Late Holocene, when people did not need to travelso far for other resources or purposes.