LATE PLEISTOCENE GEOARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN PAMPAS BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE ARGENTINA

MARCELO ZÁRATE

anthropologie

Moravian museum

Lugar: Brno; Año: 1997 vol. 35 p. 197 - 205

0323-1119

The southern Pampas of Buenos Aires comprises three main environmental units; the Tandilia and the Ventania ranges and the Pampa Interserrana. Several late Pleistocene sites are located either in quartzite rockshelters or nearby to rock outcrops in the Tandilia range whereas fan sites werefound inJluvíal settings of the Pampa Interserrana and none have heen reported in the Ventania range so far. These early human groups occupied the region during the late Glacial; most of the radiocarbon ages are comprised between the 11,000 and 10,000 14C yr, interval Bp, Paleogeographically, the region extended eastward because the sea-level was about 100-l 20 m below the present one. The variable reliability of the radíocarbon dates along wíth the low stratigraphic resolution of the arihaeological records, do not permit a precise reconstruction of the environmental and climatic conditions of that time interval. Pedogenesis and the biota substantially modified íhe records and played major roles as site formation processes. To date, the strategy of prospecting the late Pleistocene sites can be oriented by the landscape reconstructíon of the southern Pampas.