Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-20T17:44:26.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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 ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 1978 Taphonomic and Ecologic Information from Bone Weathering. Paleobiology 4:150–162.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, Anna K., Gordon, Kathleen D., and Yanagi, Glenn T. 1986 Trampling as a Cause of Bone Surface Damage and Pseudo-Cutmarks. Nature 319:768–771.Google Scholar
Bello, Silvia M., Parfitt, Simon A., and Stringer, Chris 2009 Quantitative Micromorphological Analyses of Cut Marks Produced by Ancient and Modern Handaxes. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:1869–1880.Google Scholar
Bello, Silvia M., and Soligo, Christophe 2008 A New Method for the Quantitative Analysis of Cutmark Micromorphology. Journal of Archaeological Science 35:1542–1552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 1968 General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. George Braziller, New York.Google Scholar
Dillehay, Tom, and Collins, Michael 1988 Early Cultural Evidence from Monte Verde in Chile. Nature 332:150–152.Google Scholar
Domínguez-Rodrigo, Manuel, De Juana, S., Galán, A. B., and Rodríguez, M. 2009 A New Protocol to Differentiate Trampling Marks from Butchery Cut Marks. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:2643–2654.Google Scholar
Duff, Roger 1956 The Moa-Hunter Period of Maori Culture. 2nd ed. Canterbury Museum Bulletin No. 1. R. E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Fariña, Richard A., and Castilla, Reinaldo 2007 Earliest Evidence for Human-Megafauna Interaction in the Americas. In Human and Faunal Relationships Reviewed: An Archaeozoological Approach, edited by Eduardo Corona-M. and Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, pp. 31-34. Archaeopress, Oxford.Google Scholar
Fariña, Richard A., Vizcaíno, Sergio F., and Iuliis, Gerardo De 2013 Megafauna: Giant Beasts of Pleistocene South America. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.Google Scholar
Fariña, Richard A., Sebastián Tambusso, P., Varela, Luciano, Czerwonogora, Ada, Giacomo, Mariana Di, Musso, Marcos, Bracco-Boksar, Roberto, and Gascue, Andrés 2014 Arroyo del Vizcaíno, Uruguay: A Fossil-Rich 30-ka-old Megafaunal Locality with Cut-Marked Bones. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281:2013–2211.Google Scholar
Fariña, Richard A., Sebastián Tambusso, P., Varela, Luciano, Giacomo, Mariana Di, Musso, Marcos, Bracco-Boksar, Roberto, and Gascue, Andrés 2014 Among Others, Cut-Marks are Archaeological Evidence: Reply to “Archaeological Evidences Are Still Missing: Comment on Fariña et al. Arroyo del Vizcaíno Site, Uruguay” by Suárez et al. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 2014–1637.Google Scholar
Guidon, Niède, and Delibrias, Gaston 1986 Carbon-14 Dates Point to Man in the Americas 32,000 Years Ago. Nature 321:769–771.Google Scholar
Hockett, Brian, and Jenkins, Dennis L. 2013 Identifying Stone Tool Cut Marks and the Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Paisley Caves. American Antiquity 78:762–778.Google Scholar
Lyman, R. Lee 2004 The Concept Equifinality in Taphonomy. Journal of Taphonomy 2:15–26.Google Scholar
Meltzer, David J. 2006 Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Olsen, Sandra L., and Shipman, Pat 1988 Surface Modification on Bone: Trampling Versus Butchery. Journal of Archaeological Science 15:535–553.Google Scholar
Pitblado, Bonnie L. 2011 A Tale of Two Migrations: Reconciling Recent Biological and Archaeological Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas. Journal of Archaeological Research 19:327–375.Google Scholar
Potts, Richard, and Shipman, Pat 1981 Cutmarks Made by Stone Tools on Bones from Olduvai Gorge Tanzania. Nature 291:577–580.Google Scholar
Shipman, Pat 1981 Applications of Scanning Electron Microscopy to Taphonomic Problems. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 376:357–386.Google Scholar
Shipman, Pat, and Rose, Jennie J. 1983 Evidence of Butchery and Hominid Activities at Torralba and Ambrona: An Evaluation Using Microscopic Techniques. Journal of Archaeological Science 10:465–474.Google Scholar
Pat, Shipman, Fisher, Daniel C., and Rose, Jennie J. 1984 Mastodon Butchery: Microscopic Evidence of Carcass Processing and Bone Tool Use. Paleobiology 10:358–365.Google Scholar
Stiner, Mary 1990 The Use of Mortality Patterns in Archaeological Studies of Hominid Predatory Adaptations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9:305–351.Google Scholar
Voorhies, Michael R. 1969 Taphonomy and Population Dynamics of an Early Pliocene Vertebrate Fauna, Knox County, Nebraska. Contributions to Geology 1:1–69.Google Scholar
Walker, Phillip L. 1978 Butchering and Stone Tool Function. American Antiquity 43:710–715.Google Scholar
Walker, Phillip L., and Long, Jeffrey C. 1977 An Experimental Study of the Morphological Characteristics of Tool Marks. American Antiquity 32:605–616.Google Scholar