Transporting rocks to an empty environment of lithic raw materials. The case of the Central Pampean Dunefields (Argentina)

Abstract The main objective of this paper is to explore the reasons for hunter-gatherer raw material transport towards the Central Pampean Dunefields (Pampa grasslands of Argentina); a landscape lacking lithic raw materials. For this purpose, we present macroscopic characterizations of stone tools and analyze different production and use strategies from four Holocene stratified sites: La Susana 1, Laguna de los Pampas, Laguna Cabeza de Buey 2, and Huencu Nazar. In these sites, the lithic assemblages are formed mainly by orthoquartzite and chert from the Tandilia Range (southeast), followed by lower frequencies of other non-local lithic raw materials (silicified dolomite, silicified limestone, silex, sandstone, metaquartzite, chalcedony, ryolite, obsidian, among others), which came from diverse vectors of provenance (south, west, southeast, southwest, and northwest). We conclude that distances from the sites to the area of lithic acquisition was not the main factor in the use of certain stones in the Central Pampean Dunefields. Other variables have a more prominent role, such as the qualities of knapping rocks, the access to the quarries, the predominant direction of human mobility, and the social interactions between hunter-gatherer groups that occupied different territories of the Pampa grasslands during the Middle and Late Holocene.