Current perspectives on human-animal relationships in Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, southern Patagonia

Abstract

This paper deals with human populations in insular environments. The archaeology of the southern end of the American continent comprises a particularly relevant study in this regard, as it consists of an archipelago of land-bridge islands with varying characteristics, where the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is the largest. In this paper, a biogeographical perspective is applied to review current knowledge of human-animal relationships in southern Patagonia, and different levels at which insularisation would have been important to the hunter-gatherers of the Atlantic watershed of the island during the last 2300 years are discussed. The results of a zooarchaeological study on Fueguian mammalian archaeofaunas suggest that there were no important constraints on the conditions under which guanacos and pinnipeds were acquired and processed by hunter-gatherers in the Late Holocene. The analysis of the archaeofaunal record suggests that these activities took place by way of distinct forager strategies – conside...