A new proposal for the technological analysis of lithic points: Application for understanding the cultural diversity of hunter gatherers in Eastern South America
Graphical abstract
Introduction
In Southern Brazil, lithic industries presenting projectile points have been traditionally associated to the Umbu Tradition. This association by Brazilian archaeologists started during the late 1970s (Meggers and Evans, 1977), but many attempts of defining different “traditions” and “phases”, highly influenced by Phillips and Wiley (1953) theoretical proposals, considering morphological-typological attributes of stemmed lithic points, were made from the 1960s until the 1990s (Okumura and Araujo, 2017; Moreno de Sousa and Okumura, 2018; Moreno De Sousa, 2020). These first attempts failed to create consensual understanding on the artefactual variability of the earliest groups from Southern Brazil. Most of the descriptions of the groups (traditions or phases) were not clearly made, making the assignment of the specimens to a given group an impossible task (Araujo and Okumura, 2017). Later, many researches aggregated all those Southern Brazilian assemblages presenting stemmed points to the Umbu Tradition, assuming that all sites presenting stemmed points from Southeastern and Southern Brazil, Uruguay and adjacent areas from Paraguay and Argentina, were culturally homogeneous (see: Dias and Hoeltz, 2010; Araujo, 2015; Moreno de Sousa and Okumura, 2018; for a more detailed discussion). The oldest sites assigned to it would date from 13,000 cal. BP and such Tradition would have lasted until the Late Holocene. Okumura and Araujo (2013, 2014; 2015; 2016; 2017) and Araujo and Okumura (2017) aimed to unravel the diversity of such points using Geometric Morphometrics, which revealed important morphological differences among different Brazilian regions previously considered within the Umbu territory (see: Okumura and Araujo, 2016; Moreno de Sousa and Okumura, 2018; Moreno de Sousa, 2020; for a complete discussion on the Umbu Tradition definition history). Moreno de Sousa (2020) was the first one to try to define these differences into types based on technological features, but no raw technological data have been presented to support those definitions.
Since previous morphometric studies identified regional differences among Umbu points from different regional settings, the current research tested whether such differences could be observed also in terms of technology. However, no protocols for the technological analysis of lithic points were completely suited for our samples. This motivated the elaboration of new protocol, based on previous proposals (Binford, 1963; Mentz Ribeiro and Hentschke, 1976; Okumura and Araujo, 2014), but adapted to the cultural diversity that was observed in the South American assemblages, as well as to our research questions.
Section snippets
Regional and chronological settings
Unfortunately, few Brazilian sites with stemmed points present absolute chronologies (see: Okumura and Araujo, 2017; for an updated list). Most sites have never been dated, and only a few of the dated ones present a clear chronology for the beginning and the end of stemmed point production and/or deposition at each site. The analyzed sites in this article were selected based on a good chronological information for the “Umbu Tradition” (Table 1, Fig. 1). All sites are located in Southern and
Materials and methods
A protocol for the technological analysis of stemmed and unstemmed lithic points was elaborated considering thirty metric, morphological and technological features of points, as well as raw material identification, and the diachrony of the negatives (the reading of the order of the artifact negatives). This method considered the importance of lithic points as potential cultural markers in several archaeological contexts (see: Binford, 1963; Cambron and Hulse, 1975; Mentz Ribeiro and Hentschke,
Results
The descriptive statistics show patterns for all the observed cultural attributes of the lithic points for each identified type. The approximate values and variables are presented on Table 2, Table 3. Table 2 presents the main features for the Rioclarense and Tunas industry associated type points, and Table 3 presents the main features for the point types associated to the Garivaldinense Industry (but see supplemental materials for the original complete dataset of technological analysis).
In the
Discussion
These five distinct types of points have helped to define three regional cultural patterns of lithic industries, and they go against the idea of a unique tradition (Umbu Tradition) related to hunter-gatherer occupations in Southern Brazil.
It is also important to notice that previous studies by Okumura and Araujo (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) and Araujo and Okumura (2017) reached a similar conclusion by applying Geometric Morphometrics to a similar set of stemmed points. Even though
Concluding remarks
Our results support the idea of a greater diversity in lithic points from Southern Brazil (Moreno De Sousa and Okumura, 2018; Okumura and Araujo, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) and corroborates the definition of the lithic point types previously proposed by Moreno de Sousa (2020). These results also support some recent proposed models that use cultural diversity in order to better understand the occupation of Eastern South America between 13,000 and 7000 cal. BP (Araujo, 2015; Moreno De Sousa,
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to the curators of all institutions who kindly offered access to the lithic assemblages for analysis: Dr. Tania Andrade Lima and Dr. Rita Scheel-Ybert (National Museum, UFRJ); Dr. Adriana Meinking-Guimarães (ValVerde Consultoria), Dr. Robson Rodrigues (Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology of Araraquara); Dr. Igor Chmyz, Dr. Laercio Brochier, and Dr. Fabio Parenti (Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas Arqueológicas, UFPR); and Dr. Sérgio Klamt (Centro de Ensino e Pesquisa
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