Hunting on the coast: an image gallery of Rompecráneos

Abstract

The Rompecráneois a special kind of lithic artifact which was, presumably, involved in the capture of pinnipeds carried out along the Patagonian coast of Argentina during prehistorical times. Recent papers had offered some information about their morphology but up to now they are poorly studied. In order to offset this situation in a previous work we addressed their role in hunting technics developed in the archaeological locality Punta Entrada (Santa Cruz, Argentina). This allowed us to propose that rompecráneos were used in combination with spears during huntings that took place on the coast. With the aim of expanding this information, here we present an image gallery of some rompecráneos recovered there. Two of these pieces share a similar morphology but were made of different lithic raw material. The other one has the appearance of a bola stone but its weight is higher than other bola stones in Patagonia. That is why it is considered a different kind of artifact. The importance of studying these kinds of artifacts is that they have the potential of providing information about the way people interacted with the different resources (biotic and abiotic) in the past so a better understanding of human behaviour can be developed.