Plants that feed the hearth: first results of the phytolith record of combustion structures from Cueva de los Catalanes (Araucanía, Chile)
Background and aims: Fire management is a widely discussed topic in Archaeology, which has been mainly addressed through anthracology and carpology. Phytolithanalysis complements these techniques thanks to some silica phytolith advantages: 1) they are preserved in a wide variety of environments with...
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
| Publicado: |
Sociedad Argentina de Botánica
2022
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/BSAB/article/view/37652 |
| Aporte de: |
| Sumario: | Background and aims: Fire management is a widely discussed topic in Archaeology, which has been mainly addressed through anthracology and carpology. Phytolithanalysis complements these techniques thanks to some silica phytolith advantages: 1) they are preserved in a wide variety of environments without requiring carbonization or special conditions and 2) they account for different taxonomic categories and different plant organs. The present study seeks to identify the plant specific signal from the combustion structures of Cueva de los Catalanes, in comparison to areas without evidence of combustion and throughout the occupational sequence.M&M: The material analyzed corresponds to sediment samples from Cueva de Los Catalanes’s different occupation levels and combustion structures. Phytolith analysis and the statistical processing of the data were carried out.Results: This work suggests that phytolith assemblages are very heterogeneous.However, samples coming from the combustion structures show both higher concentrations and diversity of phytoliths. Likewise, pre-Hispanic samples are richerin phytoliths and the spectrum shows some different features, which correlate with higher densities of the archaeological materials.Conclusions: Phytolith analysis is outlined as a useful as well as a complementary tool to understand the study area’s fire management, having a wide potential poorly explored. |
|---|