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Bone Surface Modifications, Reasonable Certainty, and Human Antiquity in the Americas: The Case of the Arroyo Del Vizcaίno Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard A. Fariña
Richard A. Fariña*
Affiliation:
Sección Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias, Iguá 4225, 11400 Montevideo, Uraguay (fari~a@fcien.edu.uy)
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Abstract

Modifications on bone surfaces are taphonomic features that allow, among other aspects of environmental reconstruction, the assessment of human presence. The agents that cause such marks are diverse and of both biotic and abiotic origin. Among the former, marks made by human tools are of paramount importance for archaeologists and paleontologists to identify. Although it is possible to erroneously assign trampling marks to cut marks, several criteria have been recently developed so as to avoid such risks. These methods are applied here to the 30,000-year-old site of Arroyo del Vizcaíno (Uruguay), where over one thousand megafaunal remains have been collected. Some of them show marks that have been interpreted to be the result of the action of human tools. Using a database built up from previous studies of experimentally made marks as an actualistic model, it was concluded that the marks in the Arroyo del Vizcaíno site are unlikely to have been made by trampling, hence leaving human agency as the most feasible cause. This has important consequences for the debate on the human peopling of the Americas and on the process of extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna.

Las modificaciones en la superficie de los huesos son características tafonómicas que permiten, entre otros aspectos de la reconstrucción del ambiente en que vivía el organismo, la evaluación de la presencia humana. Los agentes que causan esas marcas son diversos y de origen tanto biòtico como abiòtico. Entre los primeros, es de la mayor importancia para disciplinas como la arqueología y la paleontología la identificación de aquellas marcas hechas por herramientas humanas. Aunque es posible asignar erróneamente marcas de pisoteo a marcas de corte, varios criterios se han desarrollado recientemente para evitar tales riesgos. Esto se aplica aquí al yacimiento del Arroyo del Vizcaíno (Uruguay) de fecha 30.000 años aP, en el que más de mil restos de megafauna ya han sido colectados. Algunos de ellos muestran marcas que fueron interpretadas como productos de la acción humana. Usando una base de datos tomada de la bibliografía de marcas hechas experimentalmente como un modelo actualista, se concluye que es muy improbable que esas marcas sean debidas al pisoteo, dejando asila acción humana como la causa más probable. Esto plantea importantes consecuencias en el debate del poblamiento de América y en el proceso de extinción de la megafauna pleistocena.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 193 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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