The first occupations of the El Trebol site during the Pleistocene-Holcene Transition (Nahuel Huapi Lake, Patagonia Argentina)

Abstract

This paper presents analyses of the earliest levels of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in the El Trebol site, a rockshelter located in the forest-lake environment of Nahuel Huapi Lake (41° 04′ 35″ S and 71° 29′ 25″ W, approx. 760 masl). Here we add more information by presenting analyses of stone and bone assemblages from new excavations conducted in 2006. After reappraising some stratigraphic units as relicts corresponding to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, levels originally assigned to the middle Holocene have been reinterpreted and are now assigned to the earliest occupations. El Trebol rockshelter bears witness to the early settlement of an Andean forest-lake environment in northern Patagonia during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, perhaps by small groups and for short periods of time. They exploited a wide variety of mammals, both extinct and extant today, including megafauna, fish, birds and mollusks. Stone tools were manufactured on local and non-local materials. The latter imply long-distance travel or trade contacts.