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The European colonisation of South America had different effects on the indigenous peoples, particularly on mobile hunter-gatherer societies such as those that inhabited mainland southern continental Patagonia and the island of Tierra del Fuego. The combination of archaeological data with ethnographic and historical accounts shows contrasting contexts for the manufacture of scrapers and projectile points with new raw materials such as glass and stoneware within these two distinct geographic areas. These differences are explained by a number of key factors: the introduction of the horse, the role of guanaco in a newly imposed capitalist economic framework, demographic patterns, bio-geographic barriers and the establishment of 'reservations' and missions. Keywords: southern Patagonia, sixteenth to twentieth centuries AD, hunter-gatherers, glass, stoneware, scrapers, projectile points, Introduction European colonisation of the Americas had a dramatic impact on the indigenous communities with which it came into contact, nowhere more so than in the case of hunter-gatherers. Southernmost [...]

Research in two distinct steppe landscapes in southern Patagonia--the western basaltic plateaux and the central Deseado Massif--compares hunter-gatherer strategies in the two environments, focusing on the use of hunting blinds and associated tactics in the hunting of guanaco. The evidence obtained brings this region into discussions about the use of rocky structures and the recognition of tactics used for hunting ungulates in a global perspective. The authors also emphasise the importance of highland settings as major and reliable sources of critical resources for foraging peoples, a topic still not fully appreciated in archaeological studies of hunter-gatherers. Keywords: Argentina, Patagonia, Late Holocene, guanaco, hunting strategy, hunting blinds, Introduction Hunting strategies and tactics deployed by past hunter-gatherer societies are key to understanding the changing relationships between human populations and their environment over time. This becomes especially relevant at [...]

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