Stone Tool Manufacture Strategies and Lithic Raw Material Exploitation in Coastal Patagonia, Argentina: A Multivariate Approach

This paper seeks to characterize strategies of artifact manufacture and lithic raw material exploitation along San Matías Gulf coast, Argentina, using multifactorial and cluster analysis. Multifactorial analysis is a relatively new method that has yet to be used for archaeological analysis; it has t...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Cardillo, Marcelo, Alberti, Jimena
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/3272
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/3272
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Raw material selection
San Matías Gulf
Multivariate methods
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/6.1
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/6
Descripción
Sumario:This paper seeks to characterize strategies of artifact manufacture and lithic raw material exploitation along San Matías Gulf coast, Argentina, using multifactorial and cluster analysis. Multifactorial analysis is a relatively new method that has yet to be used for archaeological analysis; it has the advantage that it allows us to describe data using different groups of qualitative or quantitative variables at the same time. Additionally, cluster analysis was conducted on multifactorial axis in a bid to identify grouping patterns. The results obtained from the combination of these two methods suggest that they may be useful in characterizing technological strategies in the study area. Furthermore, they may also be a powerful exploratory and characterization tool able to generate explanations at low spatial scales. The application of these methods on San Matías Gulf study case suggests that along the western and northern coasts of this Gulf the most important variables in determining differences in resource use were the fragmentation ratio and lithic raw materials used in artifact manufacture