TY - JOUR
T1 - Hunter-Gatherer Mobility Strategies in the High Andes of Northern Chile during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Transition (ca. 11,500–9500 CAL B.P.)
AU - Osorio, Daniela
AU - Capriles, José M.
AU - Ugalde, Paula C.
AU - Herrera, Katherine A.
AU - Sepúlveda, Marcela
AU - Gayo, Eugenia M.
AU - Latorre, Claudio
AU - Jackson, Donald
AU - De Pol-Holz, Ricardo
AU - Santoro, Calogero M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, © Trustees of Boston University 2017.
PY - 2017/5/4
Y1 - 2017/5/4
N2 - The high Andes of western South America feature extreme ecological conditions that impose important physiological constraints on humans including high-elevation hypoxia and cold stress. This leads to questions regarding how these environments were colonized by the first waves of humans that reached them during the late Pleistocene. Based on previous research, and aided by human behavioral ecology principles, we assess hunter-gatherer behavioral strategies in the Andean highlands during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Specifically, we formulate three mobility strategies and their archaeological expectations and test these using technological and subsistence evidence from the six earliest well-dated highland sites in northern Chile. Our results suggest that all of the studied sites were temporarily occupied for hunting, processing animals, and toolkit maintenance. The sites also exhibit shared technological features within a curatorial strategy albeit with different occupation intensities. From this evidence, we infer that the initial occupations of the highlands were logistical and probably facilitated by increased local resource availability during a period of environmental amelioration.
AB - The high Andes of western South America feature extreme ecological conditions that impose important physiological constraints on humans including high-elevation hypoxia and cold stress. This leads to questions regarding how these environments were colonized by the first waves of humans that reached them during the late Pleistocene. Based on previous research, and aided by human behavioral ecology principles, we assess hunter-gatherer behavioral strategies in the Andean highlands during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Specifically, we formulate three mobility strategies and their archaeological expectations and test these using technological and subsistence evidence from the six earliest well-dated highland sites in northern Chile. Our results suggest that all of the studied sites were temporarily occupied for hunting, processing animals, and toolkit maintenance. The sites also exhibit shared technological features within a curatorial strategy albeit with different occupation intensities. From this evidence, we infer that the initial occupations of the highlands were logistical and probably facilitated by increased local resource availability during a period of environmental amelioration.
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U2 - 10.1080/00934690.2017.1322874
DO - 10.1080/00934690.2017.1322874
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020183829
SN - 0093-4690
VL - 42
SP - 228
EP - 240
JO - Journal of Field Archaeology
JF - Journal of Field Archaeology
IS - 3
ER -