Abstract
The Culebra site, located in close proximity to the Atures Rapids, is one of the very few open-air occupations in the entire Orinoco valley that is thought to date to the early Holocene. Following renewed excavations in this location, we characterize the stone technology in unprecedented detail and perform both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the assemblage deposited in the first cultural layers. Additionally, we directly date the sediment forming the depositional context of the assemblage using stratigraphically stable components of soil organic matter. Coupled with our stratigraphic and paedological data, the deposit is, contrary to established estimates, shown to date to the late Holocene, well after the appearance of ceramics in the region. The toolkit identified through the lithic analysis, therefore, does not reflect an Archaic hunter–gatherer adaptation as previously assumed. Our findings are placed in the context of previous research in the Orinoco and lowland South America more broadly. More work is needed to understand the changing role of different stone tool reduction sequences with reference to adaptational strategies and bioclimatic variability.
Highlights
And Middle Holocene archaeological deposits have been documented in only a handful of sites along the Orinoco River
Excepting the well-dated site of Cerro Gavilán [6], the preceramic cultural chronology of the Middle Orinoco has been anchored by a single radiometric assay from the ‘Preceramic Component A’ layers at the Provincial site
We analysed a lithic assemblage from the Middle Orinoco, Venezuela to provide the first baseline for stone reduction technology in this setting
Summary
And Middle Holocene archaeological deposits have been documented in only a handful of sites along the Orinoco River. We provide a re-evaluation of the lithic technology and chronology of the Culebra site, located on a floodplain between the banks of the Orinoco and Cataniapo rivers, in Amazonas State, Venezuela (figure 1). Culebra is the type site for the preceramic Atures I and II phases [1,2,3], and is one of five other known locations of a similar age in the middle reaches of the Orinoco River.
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