Bone Awls and Basketry in Tierra del Fuego: Complementarity between Ethnography and Experimentation

ABSTRACT

The use of rushes and bone awls for indigenous basketry is mentioned in ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources from across the Americas, including Tierra del Fuego. Our research aimed to reproduce and record the technical process of basketry and how bone awls are involved in it, according to hypotheses derived from the ethnographic data. For this study, a techno-functional approach was adopted that combines the ethnographic record, community-based research, experimentation, and microscopic functional analysis. The chaine opératoire was reproduced for basket making, from the technical processes involved in collecting and processing rushes to completion of the basket. Results confirmed the effectiveness of techniques described in the documentary sources for the manufacture of baskets of Marsippospermum grandiflorum, including the use of bone awls. Functional analysis demonstrated the formation of characteristic use-wear traces produced by this activity.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimental archaeology
• use-wear analysis
• functional studies
• chaine opératoire
• rush basketry
• community-based research
• bone awl
• Tierra del Fuego

Acknowledgments

First, we deeply thank Dra. M. Estela Mansur, our co-author of this work, who left us recently. We had the privilege of sharing and learning from her. We dedicate this work to her memory. Thank you, Estela, for being a teacher, colleague and friend, for your generosity, for sharing everything you knew with us, for trusting and for forming this team that misses you every day. We will always remember you as our refuge and home in this south of the south.

This research was carried out as part of the ATMA Project (Techno Functional Analysis of Archaeological Materials – CADIC-CONICET, Argentina), ECOS-SUD Project “Estrategias y Gestión de Recursos en Sociedades Cazadoras-recolectoras de Patagonia Austral y Tierra del Fuego: Perspectivas Cruzadas desde el Estrecho de Magallanes al Canal Beagle” and PIP 0868: “Tecnología y Subsistencia de Cazadores Pedestres en el Sector Occidental del Lago Fagnano, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina”. We want to thank the members of “Taller de Cestería Mapi” (Mapi Basketry Workshop) held in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, in 2017. Thanks to Angélica Tivoli and Francisco Zangrando for letting us analyze the archaeological awls from Heskaia 35 microscopically. We thank Mr. Victor Vargas, Yagán craftsman and good friend, who accepted our request to share with us his expertise on this and other subjects. We also thank the Museo Marítimo of Ushuaia (Argentina) and the Museo Salesiano Maggiorino Borgatello of Punta Arenas (Chile). Finally, we are very grateful to the reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Geolocation Information

Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Around 54°10’S and 68°30’W.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Franch Bach

Anna Franch Bach Ph.D fellowship (CADIC-CONICET). Formation in Archaeology in UAB (Barcelona). Ph.D at Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo (UNLP-Argentina). Member of Grupo de Investigaciones y Análisis Tecno-funcional de Materiales Arqueológicos (GIATMA-CADIC-CONICET).

Vanesa E. Parmigiani

Vanesa E. Parmigiani Professional assistant (CADIC-CONICET), Teaching-Research Assistant (IDEI-Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Ph.D student in Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo (UNLP-Argentina). Member of Grupo de Investigaciones y Análisis Tecno-funcional de Materiales Arqueológicos (GIATMA-CADIC-CONICET). Chercheur associe PALOC-MNHN-PARIS.

M. Estela Mansur

M. Estela Mansur Senior Researcher (CONICET-CADIC), Research professor (Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego). Formation in Anthropology/Archaeology at La Plata University (Argentina), Ph.D at Bordeaux University (France), 1984. There since, continuous research oriented to lithics analysis: experimentation, wear traces formation, technology. Director of Grupo de Investigaciones y Análisis Tecno-funcional de Materiales Arqueológicos (GIATMA-CADIC-CONICET).

Hernán H. De Angelis

Hernán H. De Angelis Assistant Researcher (CONICET-CADIC), Teaching-Research Assistant (IDEI-Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego). Formation in Anthropology/Archaeology and Ph.D. in La Plata University. Member of Grupo de Investigaciones y Análisis Tecno-funcional de Materiales Arqueológicos (GIATMA-CADIC-CONICET). Chercheur associe PALOC-MNHN-PARIS.

M. Celina Alvarez Soncini

M. Celina Alvarez Soncini Assistant Researcher (CONICET, CIT-TDF) Formation in Anthropology/Archaeology and Ph.D. in La Plata University. Member of Grupo de Investigaciones y Análisis Tecno-funcional de Materiales Arqueológicos (GIATMA-CADIC-CONICET).