Assessing indigenous technology and land-use patterns between pre- and equestrian times in southern Patagonia (southern South America)

Abstract

One of the most profound effects of the European expansion across America from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries was the introduction of the horse. This phenomenon left a wake of cultural and ecological changes among native, foot-mobile hunter-gatherer groups. Historical and archaeological sources suggest that the spread of equestrian adaptation to southern Patagonia (southern South America) drove the occupation of high quality grazing areas, the gradual abandonment of projectile points, and their replacement by lithic “bolas” as the primary hunting tool among indigenous people between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Here, we assess the archaeological distribution of projectile points and occupational events in southern Patagonia for the last 500 years through non-parametric and spatial statistical analyses. Our results support the gradual transformation in native hunting technologies after they adopted the horse. However, equestrian occupations are located differently from previous times, although not mainly in high quality grazing areas. This may have resulted from the land-use patterns of hunter-gatherers on horseback and the expansion of European settlements that reduced the availability of “free” lands for indigenous use.