Spaces and Species: The Rodrigo Botet Collection (Valencia, Spain) and the Palaeoecological relationships of early Homo sapiens during first dispersal in the Southern Cone of South America

Abstract

In this paper we present the taphonomical analyses realized in the Rodrigo Botet Collection, from Pampas Region (Argentina) where different bones with anthropic action were found. This South American megamammals collection is housed at the Natural Science Museum of Valencia (Spain), and it is the most important of its type in Europe. In order to understand this evidence, a paleoecological framework was applied. This is correlated with the relations established between Homo sapiens and the native megafauna that would have implied new ways of niche construction or colonization in South American spaces. The distribution of the different species over the landscape, the general ecological characteristics of these mammals, and the presence of possible competitors were taken into account in this research. In this context we emphasise that humans behaved as an invasive species in this continent during the first American peopling. Special significance is also granted to the importance of comparing different situational events of human?s first dispersals in different settings. America and Europe are exemplary case studies for making further discoveries about the different anthropic impacts of our species in different time and spaces.