A Taphonomic Perspective on Intensification of Animal Resource Use in Central-Western Argentina

Hunter gatherers in western Argentina are thought to have intensified use of animal resources during the mid to late Holocene in southern Mendoza, Argentina. Intensification is visible in the zooarchaeological record in several ways: an increase in diet breadth incorporating greater use of small game, a decrease in the availability of large game, and an apparent demographic shift in guanaco populations from sustained harvest. A problem is that these shifts have been observed with little attention to taphonomic processes that could also account for patterns in data. The heterogeneous landscape of southern Mendoza likely produced variability in microenvironmental variables, such as soils, precipitation, and temperature that influence potential for bone preservation and thus taxonomic composition represented in faunal data. This research takes these taphonomic effects into account for analysis of composition of zooarchaeological assemblages from four ecoregions in southern Mendoza: the mountains, piedmont, volcanic environments, and the lowlands. ­