Retouched artifacts production in three hunter–gatherer contexts from Tierra del Fuego (southernmost South America, Argentina): Avilés 1, Avilés 3 and Herradura 1

Abstract

This paper aims to identify technological decisions involved in the production of retouched lithic artifacts recovered from three Late Holocene archaeological sites located in the northeast of the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). More specifically, the main goal is to assess whether there is any relationship among raw material selection, retouching intensity, and the morphology of retouched artifacts. Through the analysis of several correlations between the knapping quality of the different raw materials employed and the index of invasiveness and curvature, it is inferred that raw materials were selected according to their homogeneous texture and convex shape in order to produce long retouched edges. As most of the retouched artifacts have been produced on unifacial blanks, using unipolar debitage techniques which does not require specific knapping skills, it is proposed that similarities found in the three archaeological sites can be explained as a result of oral transmission of basic technological knowledge.