La identificación del uso de fuentes secundarias de materiales líticos asistida por SIG: El Arroyo Chasicó (Argentina) como caso de estudio

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the methodology deployed in the Chasicó basin (southern Pampas, Argentina) in order to discuss the differential contribution of primary and secondary lithic sources in the spatial and technological organization of late Holocene hunter-gatherers societies. Such methodology is based on the comparative analysis of curves constructed with data obtained from virtual transects traced over continuous spatial models representing different properties of regional lithic landscapes. Those models were created by interpolation using a technique called Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) from scattered information recovered at point locations (i.e. archaeological sites and localities; n = 12). Investigated raw materials were rhyolites and two varieties of quartzites, and the monitored variables were relative frequency (F%), relative weight (P%) and cortex index (IC). Our results suggest that both varieties of quartzites were mainly procured from secondary sources distributed along the basin and that rhyolites were mostly obtained from primary sources located at the headwaters.