Archaeology of the Península Valdés: Spatial and Temporal Variability in the Human Use of the Landscape and Geological Resources

Abstract

The archaeological record of Peninsula Valdes shows this area was intensively used by native hunter-gatherers since at least 5000 years BP to the nineteenth century. These populations located their settlements in sandfields across the littoral zone, primarily on coastal bajadas and low marine terraces near fixed shoals of molluscs. Archaeofaunal studies and stable isotope analyses (C-13 and N-15) of human bone samples indicate that they had a terrestrial-marine diet including guanaco meat, land plants, mollusks, fishes and pinnipeds. The old inhabitants of the peninsula profited local rocks and clay minerals to manufacture their artefacts. To lithic technology, they used small pebbles of silica and basalt, big pebbles of riolites and granites, consolidated sandstones and fossil cetacean bones. The basic toolkit comprised knives, end-scrapers, side-scrapers, drills, burins, notches, fishing weights and a variety of projectile points. The big pebbles were used as manos, hammer stones and anvils, while sandstones and fossil bones were primarily employed in milling activities. With respect to pottery technology, the abundance and good quality of local clay sources allowed its important development in the final late Holocene. Most vessels present oval or spherical shapes, straight sides and concave bases. All these features are suitable for domestic activities, e.g. preparing, storing and/or cooking food and liquids. These hunter-gatherers did not live isolated from other populations: the presence of foreign rocks and of three ceramic vessels, which might have been manufactured in northwest Patagonia or perhaps central Chile, indicates that they took part in an extensive trading net since at least the late Holocene.