Abstract
The early Holocene archaeological record in Northwest Santa Cruz province in southern Argentina is remarkable in its richness. Among the lithic remains, most notable is a stemless triangular projectile point dating to ~8.5 - 10 uncalibrated kya. As part of a long term program directed to explore and understand diverse aspects of lithic technologies from Patagonia, this paper reports new observations on a set of notable unifacial tools existing in the assemblage accompanying them. Based on archaeological and experimental data we hypothesize they were produced from thick flake-blanks with one face totally or partially covered by flake scars sometimes reaching the longitudinal symmetry axis. This fact suggests that before being finished, it was reduced by detaching flakes from the edge to its center. This recent technological discovery allowed deepened on a new regional issue related with early Holocene unifacial tools that emerge as a peculiar style of covering unifacial flaking with subtle production differences to other similar implements. Together with the triangular points, this particular way of preforming the tool before and/or during the final shaping might be another distinctive manufacturing technique used by early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the area.
Highlights
Located in the Patagonian region in southern Argentine Republic, the Northwest of Santa Cruz province is a significant place in the history of the archaeology of the southern part of South America
As part of a long term program directed to explore and understand diverse aspects of lithic technologies from Patagonia, this paper reports new observations on a set of notable unifacial tools existing in the assemblage accompanying them
Based on archaeological and experimental data we hypothesize they were produced from thick flake-blanks with one face totally or partially covered by flake scars sometimes reaching the longitudinal symmetry axis. This fact suggests that before being finished, it was reduced by detaching flakes from the edge to its center. This recent technological discovery allowed deepened on a new regional issue related with early Holocene unifacial tools that emerge as a peculiar style of covering unifacial flaking with subtle production differences to other similar implements
Summary
Located in the Patagonian region in southern Argentine Republic, the Northwest of Santa Cruz province is a significant place in the history of the archaeology of the southern part of South America. Cerro Casa de Piedra (47 ̊57'S, 72 ̊05'W) is a volcanic rhyolitic hill with several rock shelters facing northwards It is situated in the transition ecotone of a deciduous wood and bushy steppe in the Lake Burmeister and Roble River valleys in Perito Moreno National Park (Figure 1). One of the main sites, the Cerro Casa de Piedra 7 (CCP7) cave, has a sedimentary deposit ~2 m deep spanning the PleistoceneHolocene transition to the Late Holocene. The lower layers (14 to 18) at CCP7 yielded evidence of diverse topics related to hunter-gatherers living there during the initial Holocene at ~7.8 - 9.6 uncalibrated kya (Civalero, 2009; Civalero & Aschero, 2003; Civalero & Franco, 2003; Civalero & De Nigris, 2005), or ~8.5 - 11.4 calibrated kya (Table 1). By the finding diagnostic tool (Figures 2(h)(i)), a significant number of finds were attributed to the initial Early Holocene occupation (Civalero, 2016)
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