The Arrival of Homo sapiens into the Southern Cone at 14,000 Years Ago
Gustavo G. Politis, María A. Gutiérrez, Daniel J. Rafuse , Adriana Blasi
Published: September 28, 2016
The Arroyo Seco 2 site in Argentina: geographic location, digital elevation model of the knoll and location of the excavation units, and photograph of central excavation units and trench. Image credit: G.G. Politis et al.
Abstract
The Arroyo Seco 2 site contains a rich archaeological record, exceptional for South America, to explain the expansion of Homo sapiens into the Americas and their interaction with extinct Pleistocene mammals. The following paper provides a detailed overview of material remains found in the earliest cultural episodes at this multi-component site, dated between ca. 12,17014C yrs B.P. (ca. 14,064 cal yrs B.P.) and 11,180 14C yrs B.P. (ca. 13,068 cal yrs B.P.). Evidence of early occupations includes the presence of lithic tools, a concentration of Pleistocene species remains, human-induced fractured animal bones, and a selection of skeletal parts of extinct fauna. The occurrence of hunter-gatherers in the Southern Cone at ca. 14,000 cal yrs B.P. is added to the growing list of American sites that indicate a human occupation earlier than the Clovis dispersal episode, but posterior to the onset of the deglaciation of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in the North America.
Citation: Politis GG, Gutiérrez MA, Rafuse DJ, Blasi A (2016) The Arrival of Homo sapiens into the Southern Cone at 14,000 Years Ago. PLoS ONE 11(9): e0162870. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162870
Editor: Michael D. Petraglia, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, GERMANY
Received: May 4, 2016; Accepted: August 30, 2016; Published: September 28, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Politis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT) (grants PICT-2010-1415, PICT-2013-0199).
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist
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