Abstract
Settlement patterns of the shell middens from the middle-late Holocene of the Santa Lucía basin (left margin of the Río de la Plata), are analyzed concerning the natural resources that they reveal. Spatial relationships among the shell middens and the environment are characterized by means of nearest neighbour index analysis and by correspondence analysis. The faunistic resources identified in the shell middens are analyzed regarding their predictability, potential distribution, density, and seasonality. It is concluded that the shell middens tend to be dispersed, and the importance of the faunistic resources is evaluated in shaping this distribution. Most of the faunistic resources recovered in the middens may proceed from around 3 to 5 km, and are potentially dense, predictable, and available along the year. These results are integrated with the knowledge of the organization of space in societies from 3000 years BP, with early presence of cultigens and ceramic production, reduced residential mobility, and adapted to the changes and transformations of the coastal environments.
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Acknowledgments
Fieldwork during 2011–2015 was supported by grants from the National Agency for Research and Innovation, project FCE-5818 and DICYT-MEC, Uruguay. We are grateful to our research team for the archaeological work.
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Beovide, L., Martínez, S., Norbis, W. (2017). Space Use Patterns and Resource Exploitation of Shell Middens from the Río de La Plata Coast (ca. 6000–2000 Years BP), Uruguay. In: Mondini, M., Muñoz, A., Fernández, P. (eds) Zooarchaeology in the Neotropics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57328-1_6
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