Strategies for Quartzitic Raw Materials Procurement in the Eastern Pampa-Patagonia Transition of Argentina during the Initial Late Holocene

Abstract

The aim of this article is to contribute with new information for the understanding of the provisioning strategies of quartzitic raw materials carried out by the hunter-gatherer groups who inhabited the eastern Pampa-Patagonia transition (Argentina) during the Initial late Holocene (ca. 3000?1000 14 C years BP). To achieve this objective, our study case is focused in Campo Monaldi archaeological locality. Previously proposed provisioning strategies of these raw materials in the study area are re-evaluated. For this purpose, the information provided by the petrographic thin sections of quartzitic rocks, the represented artifactual categories, the weight of transported rocks and the stages of the chaînes operatoires were considered. As a result, two different provisioning strategies are established, suggesting that the hunter-gatherer groups who inhabited the study area during the Initial late Holocene relied on different and complementary mechanisms to obtain quartzitic rocks. In this sense, meanwhile the orthoquartzites of the Tandilia ranges could have been obtained through exchanges, the metaquartzites and quartzite sandstones from the Ventania ranges could have been directly acquired in the outcrops and/or in secondary sources.