Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology

Resumen. En este trabajo se analizan los conjuntos líticos del sitio Cueva Maripe, ubicado en el Maci-zo del Deseado (Prov. de Santa Cruz, Argentina), donde se registraron ocupaciones desde ca. 9500 has-ta ca. 1000 años radiocarbónicos AP. Se indaga acerca de las estrategias de producción lítica asociadas a los diferentes períodos de ocupación identificados en la cueva, que corresponden a distintos momentos del Holoceno. Para ello se realizaron análisis tecno-morfológicos de los productos de talla, principalmente en relación al uso de las materias primas y al diseño artefactual. Los resultados obtenidos evidencian ciertas diferencias en relación a estos tópicos para los distintos bloques temporales registrados en Cueva Maripe. Ello ha permitido profundizar y ampliar el conocimiento acerca de estas ocupaciones e indirectamente de la relación que estos grupos cazadores-recolectores tenían con su entorno.

Abstract. Lithic production strategies involve choices linked to the procurement and processing of rocks. These strategies respond to social and environmental variables which can be studied through the artifacts. This paper analyzes the Cueva Maripe site, located in the Central plateau of Santa Cruz (Argentina) in which occupations were recorded from ca. 9500 to ca. 1000 years BP. Much of the previously analyzed lithic material corresponds to the mid Holocene. This paper updates the already existing data with those obtained in a recent field work in order to integrate the information of the lithic assemblages recovered at Cueva Maripe site. From this analysis different production strategies for the occupation periods identified at the cave are proposed. The obtained results allowed expand our knowledge about the human occupations at Cueva Maripe site and the relationship that these groups of hunter-gatherers had with their environment.

RESUMEN La osteoartrosis (OA) es una de las afecciones patológicas más comunes en las colecciones esqueletales. Se analizaron 24 individuos provenientes de sitios arqueológicos del Centro-Norte de Mendoza (Argentina) correspondientes al Holoceno tardío, con el objetivo de estudiar la presencia de OA en el esqueleto apendicular. Para ello se evaluó la frecuencia de lesiones en relación con el sexo, la edad, la cronología y la procedencia geográfica de los esqueletos. Los resultados preliminares muestran una alta prevalencia de OA (58,3%). No se registraron diferencias significativas con respecto a la edad y al sexo, aunque algunas articulaciones como hombros y codos podrían estar más afectadas en el sexo masculino. Los individuos asociados con momentos de intensificación agrícola no mostraron un cambio claro en el desarrollo de la OA. No obstante, se registró una mayor frecuencia de esta patología en articulaciones de los miembros superiores y una disminución en los miembros inferiores. Futuros análisis sobre muestras más amplias permitirán evaluar estas hipótesis. ABSTRACT Osteoarthrosis (OA) is one of the most common pathological conditions recorded in skeletal series. Twenty-four individuals from archaeological sites from Center-North region of Mendoza (Argentina), to late Holocene were analyzed, with the aim to study the presence of OA in the appendicular skeleton. For this, it was evaluated the frequency of lesions related to sex, age, chronology and geographical origin of the skeletons. The preliminary results showed a total prevalence of 58.3% of appendicular OA. No significant differences were observed between sexes and ages, although some joins, as shoulder and elbow seems to be more affected in men. No clear relationship between agriculturalist economy and OA were recorded in this particular sample. Nevertheless, more frequent of degenerative changes were registered in higher limbs and a decrease in lower limbs. Future analyses are necessary to test these preliminary hypotheses.

Archaeologists know less about how hunter-gatherers and early agriculturists lived during the Archaic period in the Mexican Northwest compared to the U.S. Southwest. To evaluate Archaic period mobility, lithic technology, and regional and temporal patterns in raw material procurement in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, we characterized the trace elemental composition of 61 obsidian artifacts from Rancho Santa María I, II, and El Peñón del Diablo using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. People predominantly used Los Jagüeyes obsidian procured locally from secondary deposits, but they also used three additional sources from upland and lowland environments in the Mexican Northwest to make dart projectile points and debitage. Also, they reduced obsidian using bipolar percussion, and there is regional and temporal variation in obsidian source use. This study contributes new insights into how mobility, raw material availability, and nodule size affected lithic technological organization in an understudied region.

Experimental study of thermal alteration on exoskeletons of marine molluscs (Nacella magellanica) and its implications for the interpretation of arqueomalacological assemblages of shell middens in Patagonia argentina.

Se presentan los resultados del programa experimental realizado sobre exoesqueletos calcáreos actuales de Nacella magellanica (Patellidae, Gasteropoda). Esta especie de molusco es una de las principales que compone los concheros arqueológicos en Patagonia continental argentina. Se buscó obtener evidencias de rasgos diagnósticos y modificaciones generadas sobre los exoesqueletos como consecuencia del proceso de exposición térmica. Diferentes muestras fueron sometidas a la quema controlada bajo condiciones de laboratorio en una mufla con termocupla digital para obtener mayor control sobre las temperaturas (de 0°C a 700°C). Se llevó a cabo el análisis estructural, cromático y textural de las muestras expuestas al calor. Se realizó una primera aproximación a la aplicación de los indicadores obtenidos en el trabajo experimental para el estudio y la interpretación de conjuntos arqueomalacológicos recuperados en excavaciones sistemáticas en concheros de la costa norte de Santa Cruz, Patagonia argentina. Esta información se complementó con estudios antracológicos de carbones recuperados en los mismos sitios. La contrastación de los resultados experimentales y de los restos arqueomalacológicos permitió estimar que las conchas arqueológicas habrían estado sometidas hasta temperaturas de entre 300°C y 400°C. Finalmente, se destaca la importancia del enfoque experimental para comprender características de materiales que conforman los sitios arqueológicos.

Se presentan los resultados de las prospecciones sistemáticas desarrolladas en el área costa norte de Santa Cruz. Se registró la distribución espacial de concheros y aspectos estructurales, composicionales, contextuales y formacionales de los depósitos, así como las características geomorfológicas y ambientales de los espacios en los que se emplazan los sitos. El objetivo es analizar las características espaciales y la variabilidad del registro arqueológico para avanzar en la comprensión acerca del uso de los espacios costeros y los recursos explotados por las poblaciones pasadas. Las evidencias indican que en los concheros registrados en distintas localidades arqueológicas se habrían desarrollado tipos de actividades similares. No obstante, la frecuencia de este tipo de sitio, las densidades de materiales, así como el tamaño de los concheros muestran diferencias que podrían relacionarse con las características de los ambientes, la funcionalidad dada a los diferentes espacios, la disponibilidad de recursos y de fuentes de agua dulce. Finalmente, se plantea la existencia de un patrón distribucional de concheros definido por la asociación entre los espacios donde se ubican de los sitios y su cercanía a costas de baja pendiente, con presencia de plataformas de abrasión rocosas con disponibilidad de moluscos y otros recursos alimenticios como aves y pinnípedos.

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Recently, scholars have questioned the extent to which humans perceived and responded to the environmental effects of the Younger Dryas (YD) (Anderson 2001; Anderson et al. 2011; Eren 2012; Holliday and Meltzer 2010; Kuhn and Miller 2015; Meltzer and Holliday 2010; Meeks and Anderson 2012; Smallwood et al. 2015; Tune 2016). Although previous studies have explored this question, minimal attention has been paid to longitudinal effects of the YD on North American hunter gatherer lifeways at the local scale. Most studies focus on the onset of the YD, rather than the terminus of the event or its sustained effects. Consequently, this has led to disagreement among scholars regarding population models and behavioral adaptations to dynamic paleoecological conditions (Tune 2016). North Alabama has been largely overlooked in these discussions because of the lack of a documented, representative sample of Paleoindian bifaces. This is due to temporal biases in the Alabama Fluted Point Survey (AFPS) database, which favors bifaces that predate the mid-YD. Additionally, YD research in the region also relies heavily on inferences made from studies representing cave sites like Dust Cave, and bluff shelters, like Stanfield Worley. Combined, these temporal and site-type biases create a gap in research concerning the YD in north Alabama. However, through collaborative work with collectors and the inclusion of open source data these biases can be overcome and human responses to the YD can be effectively investigated in north Alabama. To understand the local effects of the YD on Paleoindian lifeways in north Alabama, I analyzed the variation in design and curation of approximately 1,300 hafted bifaces representing a Clovis-to-Big-Sandy succession. The observed changes in hafted bifaces are contextualized relative to YD induced fluctuations in forest structure and hunting returns. I argue that rapid cooling during the YDs and subsequent warming during the Early Holocene affected the subsistence economies of hunter-gatherers living in northern Alabama during this time as evidenced by changes in hafted biface technology. This study demonstrates the utility of large, open-source data and private collections in archaeological research for investigating behavioral adaptation to resource stressors brought on by climate change.

The Opportunistic Acquisition Model (OAM) is a computational neutral model of stone tool raw material procurement. The OAM is an variant of a natural availability model or Binford’s (1979) embedded procurement model. Raw material procurement is embedded into the foraging movement; any material that is encountered will be procured if there is room in the toolkit, and raw materials are discarded at a fixed rate. The OAM posits that the archaeological lithic raw material frequencies are due to opportunistic encounters with sources while randomly walking in an environment.

This model is an application of Brantingham’s neutral model to a real landscape with real locations of potential sources. The sources are represented as their sizes during current conditions, and from marine geophysics surveys, and the agent starts at a random location in Mossel Bay Region (MBR) surrounding the Archaeological Pinnacle Point (PP) locality, Western Cape, South Africa. The agent moves at random on the landscape, picks up and discards raw materials based only upon space in toolkit and probability of discard. If the agent happens to encounter the PP locality while moving at random the agent may discard raw materials at it based on the discard probability.

The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP), when exposed, presented Middle Stone Age (MSA) foragers at Pinnacle Point (PP) on the South Coast of South Africa with new sources of raw materials to make stone tools. Sea-level fluctuations and the changing size of the Paleo-Agulhas Plain throughout the Pleistocene PP record ∼165 ka to 50 ka would have altered the availability of different resources, thus potentially forcing new raw material procurement strategies. The relative frequencies of raw material throughout the PP sequence shows that frequencies of raw material types did change, especially after 90 ka. What caused these changing frequencies is debated and centers on whether targeted procurement of specific raw materials was the cause, or if simple raw material availability and abundance due to the changing environmental context in conjunction with opportunistic procurement drove such shifts. The application of a neutral model of stone raw material procurement presented here evaluates whether random walk in the region surrounding the PP site during different coastline configurations (Marine Isotope Stage 6, 5, and 4) explains the observed shifts in raw material usage. Put differently, did opportunistic acquisition of raw materials during random walk in these different environments cause the observed raw material pattern? Model simulations and a sensitivity analysis provide no convincing evidence that observed raw material frequencies at PP resulted from opportunistic acquisition during random walk.

Archaeologists working in mountains around the world have long recognized that people invest social meanings into the landscape around them. Based on the French philosopher de Certeau’s (1984) “Spatial Stories,” these “socialized landscapes” consist of two archaeologically identifiable components: espaces (practiced spaces) and tours (practiced paths). I operationalize these ideas by creating archaeological expectations for six socialized landscape types and ask what types of socialized landscapes can we identify from the archaeological record, particularly those left behind by mobile hunting and gathering people. I test my expectations with a pilot study in the Bridger Mountains, Montana, USA. By controlling for time using projectile point types found at sites throughout the mountains, I conduct a series of four analyses by time period to determine what types of espaces and tours past peoples created. I then compare those results against my archaeological expectations and landscape types. Although this study reveals areas of the methodology and analyses that can be improved in future studies, my research suggests that we can use this approach to understand past hunter-gatherer socialized landscapes both in the Rocky Mountains and worldwide.