BONE TOOLS REFLECTING ANIMAL EXPLOITATION. THE CASE OF Lama guanicoe IN THE LOWER PARANÁ BASIN

This paper discusses the selection of osseous raw materials from Late Holocene hunter-gatherer sites located in the wetlands that formed in the low basin of the Paraná River. Although most of the bone comes from local taxa, the bones from a non-local mammal found in the adjacent Pampa plains, Lama guanicoe (guanaco), was occasionally used in bone tool manufacture. First we characterize this ungulate through isotopic data (d18O) as non-local prey and explore the strategies for procurement of the guanacobones. Then we analyze the typology and the specific morphometric properties of the tools that were produced from them.The results show that the guanaco bones arrived from the plains of the Pampa plains by way of logistic hunting and probably at the same time through trade behavior, to obtain large hides of high quality which were not available from animals living in the wetlands. The guanaco distal metapodials were probably attached to the hides when they were brought into the settlement. They were used to producea particular kind of bone projectile. The procurement of these bones was a conscious and particular behavior associated with the acquisition of blanks with particular morphometric properties. The artifacts made of metapodia display standardized metric, morphologic and microscopic structures that supportthis statement, suggesting a well-defined and established technological strategy connected to with these particular skeletal elements