New artifacts in the “New World”. The introduction of allochthonous material culture in indigenous archaeological contexts in Fuego-Patagonia during contact moments (16th – 20th centuries)

Abstract

This paper analyses the incorporation of European and/or Creole manufacture artefacts to the technological repertoire of Indigenous groups that inhabited Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego between the 16th and 20th centuries, as the result of contact processes with European groups in Southern South America. To this end, we analysed the published archaeological information of 19,455 artefacts found in 70 post-contact sites. We assessed the types of artefacts, whether they were recycled or not, their presence/absence from sites, and their total and relative frequencies with respect to Indigenous artefacts. We considered that resource availability, Indigenous technologies, logical frameworks and cultural categories, and mobility technologies (pedestrian, equestrian, canoes) were factors involved in their adoption. General results show that allochtonous artefacts were mostly introduced as a source of raw material to manufacture specific local morphologies, and they exhibit variations in artefact types and in their regional frequencies. This may be the result of differential availability, as well as of the presence of different cultural categories and technological practices.