Abstract

LOPONTE, Daniel  and  OTTALAGANO, Flavia V.. MORPHOLOGICAL AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF BONE POINTS "BIRD TONGUE" FROM THE GOYA-MALABRIGO CONTEXTS OF NORTHEASTERN ARGENTINA. Comechingonia [online]. 2023, vol.27, n.2, pp.6-6. ISSN 1851-0027.

Hollowed points locally known as "bird tongue" are bone artifacts recovered from Goya-Malabrigo assemblages of northeastern Argentina. For their manufacture, Myocastor coypus tibiae were used by hollowing out the proximal metaphysis to insert a shaft, and shaping by sawing/fracture and grinding the apical end. Their morphometric and microwear patterns suggest they were used as projectile points. Some of their characteristics, such as very sharp extended tip and weak hafting areas, propose they South American were subject to repeated rejuvenation processes with high discard rates. The rejuvenation Lowlands process was focused on the tips, whose fracture produced smaller points with less sharp profiles that gradually decreased their effectiveness. These points appear to have been discarded when they were 4-5 cm in total length due to a decrease in efficiency. These tools could be underrepresented in archaeological assemblages due to analytical difficulty in identifying smallfracturedfragments and off-site replacement and discard.

Keywords : Bone points microwear analysis; Goya Malabrigo Northeast Argentina.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )