Abstract
On the northern coast of the San Matías Gulf, dunes form the main units of the archaeological record; however, the dynamics of the coastal environments have caused many properties of this record to be affected, generating new spatial configurations. Therefore, the geoarchaeological perspective is a determining approach when dealing with different archaeological problems and contexts since it allows to know the diverse processes that acted in these contexts. The following paper presents an analysis of the Creek Bay archaeological locality. The main archaeological evidence is a series of shell middens located in dunes, which, due to their deposition dynamics, have resulted in a high degree of preservation. The objective of this paper is to identify the agents that acted on the preservation and current disposition of the archaeological record, recognizing the importance that the bodies of dunes have had in the state of conservation of the evidence, which is conformed by valves, remains of fish and marine mammals, terrestrial vertebrates, lithics, and carbon, among others.
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Acknowledgements
Funding for this project was provided by a grant from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica of Argentina, PICT-1128. The author would like to thank Dr. Cristian Favier Dubois for his support and valuable suggestions. Veronica Lalin de Aguilar and Daniel Rafuse helped with the translation, corrections, and suggestions to improve the manuscript. To the organizers of the IV workshop of the Study Group of Geoarchaeology of Latin America GEGAL for the management and invitation to participate in this publication. To the Facultad de Ingeniería of UNICEN, for providing spaces and equipment.
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Villegas, D.V.H. (2019). Dunes as Units of Preservation of the Archaeological Record in the North Coast of San Matías Gulf, Province of Río Negro (Argentina). In: Inda Ferrero, H., García Rodríguez, F. (eds) Advances in Coastal Geoarchaeology in Latin America. The Latin American Studies Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17828-4_6
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