The Tigre Projectile Point in Central Argentina: Implications for the Initial Peopling of the Region

ABSTRACT

We report a Tigre projectile point discovered in Central Mountains of Argentina and discuss its implications for the initial peopling of the central Argentina. This type of projectile point is typical of early groups from the plains of Uruguay and south of Brazil (ca. 12,552 to 11,231 cal yr BP). Its coexistence with Fishtail projectile points in central Argentina would indicate that there was more than one exploring stage during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition.

KEYWORDS:

• Tigre projectile point
• Central Mountains of Argentina
• initial peopling

Acknowledgements

We thank the Numba Charava Museum and its director, Mrs Silvia Ledda, for allowing us to analyze their collection of projectile points. Thanks also to Dr Edgardo Baldo (CICTERRA-CONICET) for the characterization of the Tigre point’s raw material and Dr Rafael Suárez for his comments and aid.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Diego Eduardo Rivero http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9815-9893

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by CONICET (PIP 11220080102678).