New Evidences of Early Peopling of Central Patagonia: A Discoidal Stone and the First Fishtail Projectile Point from Chubut Province (Argentina, South America)

ABSTRACT

In this paper, two new artifacts, a Fishtail projectile (or Fell 1) point and a discoidal stone from central Patagonia, Argentina, are presented. These pieces, mainly associated with the initial peopling of South America, come from an area in which until now no artifacts of this type had been recovered. Both instruments, which were part of the technological equipment of Paleoamericans, are complete. The projectile point is made of light brown translucent opal, and the discoidal stone is made of rhyolite, an acidic volcanic rock. Three-dimensional models of the instruments are presented with the aim of providing a detailed and precise record of both lithic pieces. These archaeological artifacts give information on the geographical distribution of indicators of initial human presence and the use of space during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in central Patagonia, in the south of South America.

KEYWORDS:

• Fishtail projectile point
• first Americans
• final Pleistocene–early Holocene
• three-dimensional models
• central Patagonia

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Alda Mateo Garín who granted permission to study the archaeological material presented in this paper and to the professor Marcelo Troiano. We are grateful to Dr. Darío Hermo for his support in the identification and analysis of the FPP and to Dr. César Méndez for providing us with information about the discoidal stones from the Aisén region, Chile. We thank Dra. Agustina Reato, Lic. Lorena Percudani, Lic. Bernardo Wengier, and Dr. Oscar Martínez, geologists of CIEMEP-UNPSJB, for the lithological determinations of the artifacts. Finally, we thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments, which helped us to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET, Argentina).