Faunal subsistence resources in the Cañada Honda Locality (Northeastern Buenos Aires province, Argentina)

Abstract

Cañada Honda is an archaeological locality that yielded seven sites on both margins of the Cañada Honda creek and the Río Areco (Buenos Aires Province). Faunal remains are analyzed in this contribution, with the aim of understanding the economic strategies of the hunter-gatherer groups who inhabited the locality during the Late Holocene (ca. 2000 years B.P.). The methodology integrated taxonomic identification, quantification and analysis of cutmarks, fractures, thermal alteration and taphonomic damages of the identified archaeofaunas. The largest species with evidence of anthropic exploitation include the large flightless bird Rhea americana as well as the mammals Lama guanicoe, Blastoceros dichotomus, Ozotoceros bezoarticus and Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris. However, medium and small sized animals (weighing less than 15 kg) represented 65% of the total assemblage. They include aquatic and terrestrial birds, rodents, armadillos and didelphids. Among carnivores, canids, felids and mustelids are present, while reptile bones are scarce. Fish bones were abundant and at least the genus Pterodoras was identified. The small and medium sized species exploited were rodents as Myocastor coypus, Lagostomus maximus, Cavia aperea, several duck species (Anas georgica, Dendrocygna bicolour) and other aquatic species as Phalacrocorax olivaceus. Terrestrial birds as Rhynchotus rufescens and other Tinamidae registered cutmarks. Within carnivores, only Lycalopex gymnocercus showed evidence of anthropic modifications. Even though larger species were exploited for different aims (meat, bony raw material, marrow, skins), people, however, focused on the use of small fauna resources. This variability supports the idea of diversification of diet and the intensification of the exploitation of small vertebrates during the Late Holocene.