Análisis radiocarbónico en una tafocenosis de la región pampeana (provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina): Su vinculación con la Gran Seca de 1827-1832

RADIOCARBON ANALYSIS OF A TAPHOCENOSIS FROM THE PAMPEAN REGION (BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE, ARGENTINA) AND ITS RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE “GREAT DROUGHT” OF 1827–1832. A taphocenosis composed of a great number of specimens of Equus caballus, Bos taurus and Ovis aries, without age selection, was analyzed. A radiocarbon date from the bone collagen of a humerus of Bos taurus was obtained; the date is “modern” (between AD 1750 and 1950). However, the 14 C concentration of the specimen and its comparison with the South America concentration curve enabled the date to be narrowed down. The inferred date corresponds to the period AD 1817-1828, and suggests that the origin of the taphocenosis is related to the “Gran Seca” (“Great Drought”), one of the most important drought events in the Pampeana Region for which there are historical records. This is the first paleontological record of an event of mass death of livestock related to the frequent droughts that affected the Pampean Region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.