The Late Pleistocene Southern Fuego-Patagonian Archaeological Sites: New Findings, New Problems

Abstract

The Fuego-Patagonian Late Pleistocene archaeological sites are scarce; we have only a handful of them for understanding a periodof time that extends for about 1000 years. These deposits coincide with a period of substantial environmental changes that contributed to the extinction of megafauna in the region, as in the rest of the Americas. All sites registered are located in caves and rock shelters. Attempts to find new sites in other contexts of the region have not yet yielded the expected results. However, thanksto recent work done by paleobiologists seeking to obtain increasingly detailed records of climate change and its causes, we are ableto propose new research directions.