The First Paleoindian Fishtail Point Find in Salta Province, Northwestern Argentina

Claudio J Patané Aráoz,Hugo G Nami

doi:10.4236/ad.2014.22004

Abstract

Fishtail or Fell projectile points represent an excellent marker to know the presence of earliest hunter-gatherers populations living during the end of the Pleistocene and its transition to the Holocene. They are widespread in many places along Central and South America. However, there are certain areas with elusive occurrence. Adding new information on the continental and regional distributions of this paleo South American artefact, this paper reports a detailed morphological and technological study of the first fishtail point found in the Salta province, Northwestern Argentina.

Highlights

For a long time, the western part of South America and mainly the Andean Cordillera has been proposed as the dispersion area of Paleoindian hunter-gatherers that used fishtail or Fell projectile points in their weaponry (Schobinger, 1969, 1974; Mayer-Oakes, 1963)
They represent an excellent marker to know the presence of hunter-gatherers populations living during the end of the Pleistocene and its transition to the Holocene at about 11,000 - 10,000 uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago
The First Paleoindian Fishtail Point Find in Salta Province, Northwestern Argentina

Summary

Introduction

The western part of South America and mainly the Andean Cordillera has been proposed as the dispersion area of Paleoindian hunter-gatherers that used fishtail or Fell projectile points in their weaponry (Schobinger, 1969, 1974; Mayer-Oakes, 1963). They represent an excellent marker to know the presence of hunter-gatherers populations living during the end of the Pleistocene and its transition to the Holocene at about 11,000 - 10,000 uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago. Nami the existence of sites of the same antiquity, fishtail points have not previously been reported in northwestern Argentina Their finding has been elusive for many years. From that region, in this paper we report a detailed morphological and technological study of the first fishtail point found in the Salta province

Morphological and Technological Observations

Final Comment