Phytoliths and other microfossils in archaeological smoking artifacts from Santiago del Estero?s plains (Argentina): Museum collections under the microscope

Abstract

Multiple microfossil analysis (Coil et al.,2003) has generated important results in the study of archaeological soils and sediments, especially to study agricultural and livestock contexts. Successively, the use of this method to study domestic context and artifacts has also proved its effectiveness (Korstanje 2014). In recent years, smoking artifacts also showed positive results, although given the small amount of sediment obtainable it was a challenge one but not the only route taken by experts (Belmar et al. 2016, Martin Silva et al.,2016). However, all former positive cases came directly from archaeological contexts (excavation). In this occasion we present the first results of the recovery and determination of phytoliths and other microfossils from archaeological pipes exhibited as a collection from Sequia Vieja site, at the Museum of Anthropological and Natural Sciences "Emilio and Duncan Wagner" (Santiago del Estero, Argentina). They were recovered in nonsystematic excavations carried out in the 1940s, and deposited in glass cases in recent years. Although the recovery and conservation situations were not the desired, it was quite important to understand their use as possible smoking pipes since the site is being revisited at present for their importance in exchange and smoking routes (Taboada 2014), and for moment none was recovered in recent excavations. Based on this problem, multiple microfossil analysis was carried out in the pipes to determine a) the substances smoked; b) the potential diversity represented in the consumption, and c) the definition of whether they are local species or not. Comparisons were made with modern collection of plants considered to be part of the known regional prehispanic and current rural smoking complex. The results show that the methodology of multiple microfossil analysis can also be used safely within a collection context, since it allows to distinguish families of plants from the general smoking complex through contextual analysis. Despite this, it does not offer security for the identification of new local species, which require more controlled identifications, as they are still complete unknown.