Experimental study in flume with pottery sherds: first implication for insular sites located in the middle Paraná River, Argentina

Abstract

The hydrodynamics of rivers is one important factor in the distribution of archaeologicalremains located in floodplains. This study explores the hydraulic transport ofpottery sherds and evaluates the necessary conditions to initiate its movement andtransportation in a simulated fluvial environment. In order to do that, experimentswere run with a hundred of archaeological potsherds of different sizes and weightin a smooth-bed laboratory flume, within a velocity range of 25–65 cm/s. Fromthis experiment, a tentative frame of reference was generated to explain the role ofwater in the transport of potsherds considering the influence of multiple factors,such as flow velocity and shape index, sphericity, and concavity of the sherds. Theresults of this work have implications in the interpretation of archaeological recordof the Late Holocene hunter-gatherer-fisher societies that inhabited insular sites ofthe floodplain (middle basin) of the Paraná River, one of the largest lowland riversin the world. The obtained results show that it is necessary to evaluate the contextbefore making assumptions about the functionality, space use, and/or the intensity ofhuman occupations in this kind of sites.