Petrographic study of the pottery of hunter–gatherers from the lower basin of the Colorado river (Argentina) during the Late Holocene

Abstract

This paper presents the first petrographic study of pottery made by hunter–gatherer societies that inhabited the eastern Pampa–Patagonia transition regions (Buenos Aires province, Argentina), between c.1900 and 400 radiocarbon-years bp. The data show that the potters maintained technical choices during this period as part of a technological tradition. With this common knowledge, local fabric recipes coexisted linked to the regularity of the use of raw materials in accordance with the geology of the research area. Furthermore, the finding of archaeological clay doughs would indicate the in situ production of vessels in the residential contexts of these pre-Hispanic populations.