Technological Strategies and Guaranteed Return: Hunting Blinds and Patagonic Plateaus

Abstract

This work states that hunting guanaco (Lama guanicoe) in plateaus from Southern Patagonia increased progressively during the Late Holocene (ca. 2500 years BP) and entailed effective technologies combined with new demographic configurations and mobility strategies among hunter-gatherer groups (extensification processes and population convergences). These strategies include different technological aspects; technology is conceived as part of a total system and not only as a list of artifacts or instruments. Therefore, the construction of stone structures known as parapetos would have been a key aspect in the progressive use of plateaus for the procurement of faunal resources.The region under study comprises the Strobel Plateau and the area of Pampa del Asador- Guitarra Lake Plateau and Asador Plateau (Santa Cruz province´s steppe, Patagonia, Argentina). A high frequency of hunting blinds characterizes these areas which could have been part of different procurement modalities. Their functionality was not necessarily only one; it could have been variable according to different objectives and necessities in time and space.Sets of hunting blinds augmented along time, increased progressively and created an archaeological landscape supplied with the adequate technology to mark, establish and claim complete fields for hunting in wide and open areas. Thus, information was provided for the present and future generations regarding the places for acquiring prey and social contact. Therefore, communication was delivered as to which were the places with a high energetic return that guaranteed success of seasonal mobility from different places in the region.