Xerophytic Forest Record of the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition and Use of Wood Resources by Early Human Groups in the Eastern Tandilia Range, Argentina

ABSTRACT

This contribution analyzes the charcoal records found in archaeological sites dating to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (9032 ± 30 - 10,672 ± 56 radiocarbon years ago) located in the eastern Tandilia Range, Buenos Aires province, Argentina. The archaeological charcoal identified for the Pleistocene/Holocene transition were Celtis ehrenbergiana, Salix humboldtiana, Schinus sp., Colletia sp., Baccharis sp., and Senecio sp. Charcoals with high caloric values and long combustible duration were an excellent source of heat and were probably used by hunter-gatherers for heating, cooking, and lighting. The presence of xerophytic forests at least from ca. 10,000 radiocarbon years ago in the eastern Tandilia Range were inferred by the record of C. ehrenbergiana found in four archaeological sites during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. During this period, vegetation developed under a cold arid to semi-arid climate.

KEYWORDS:

• Wood anatomy
• xerophytic vegetation
• Pleistocene/Holocene transition
• hunter-gatherer groups
• Pampas region

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the organization of the IX Simposio Internacional “El Hombre Temprano en América” (Necochea, Argentina, 2018) for their invitation to contribute to this special volume.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mariana Brea is senior researcher for the National Research Council Argentina (CONICET) and Professor in the Biology department at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (FCNyM, UNLP) and Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos (FCyT, UADER). Dr Brea obtained her PhD at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in 1995. She is a specialist in fossil wood anatomy, especially from the Meso-Cenozoic of Argentina and in archaeological charcoals of the Pampas region and Delta of Paraná.

Diana Mazzanti obtained her PhD from the University of Buenos Aires in the area of Archaeology. She is a researcher at the Archaeology Laboratory of the National University of Mar del Plata. Her work focuses on the development of archaeology in eastern Tandilia (Pampas region), with the aim of reconstructing the ways of life of hunter-gatherers from the Pleistocene/Holocene transition to the study of post-conquest indigenous societies in this region.

Gustavo A. Martínez is professor of Environmental Geomorphology and Geology at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMDP). His main research is in the field of geoarchaeology, Quaternary geology and remote sensing. As a geologist, he belongs to a multidisciplinary group that has carried out archaeological research in the Pampas region since 1989.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was financially supported by Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT), PICT 2008-No. 1390 (Diana L. Mazzanti and Mariana Brea) and PICT 2013-No. 1979 (Diana L. Mazzanti and Gustavo A. Martínez), and Project Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP) HUM 546/17 (Gustavo A. Martínez).