Ichthyoarchaeology on a site located in the border of the alluvial plain of the Paraná River: Familia Primón case (Santa Fe, Argentina)

Abstract

The present study aims at presenting and discussing the variability of ichthyoarchaeological remains recovered from the Familia Primón (FP) site, located at a border sector of the alluvial plain of the Paraná River (Santa Fe, Argentina). To this end, the assemblage was analyzed through its anatomical-taxonomic identification and quantification, and the different taphonomic agents that might have influenced their origin and preservation were evaluated. Also, habitability characteristics for fish and ethnographic data were used to expand the knowledge about certain human behaviors and to generate hypotheses that can be subsequently tested and discussed through the analysis of the ichthyoarchaeological record. In order to establish a micro-regional pattern of exploitation, a comparison with other fish assemblages recovered in archaeological sites situated at the middle stretch and the Paraná River Delta was made. The results suggest that fish constituted a central resource for the subsistence of the human groups that inhabited the region during the final period of the Late Holocene.