The strategies of production and consumption of lithic artifacts implemented by the hunter-gatherer societies who participated in the first peopling (final Pleistocene - 13,000/10,000 BP - and early Holocene - 10,000/7500 BP) of the southern end of the American continent are investigated in this book. The analyzed materials were recovered from rock shelters in the Central Plateau of Santa Cruz, Patagonia Argentina. The lithic materials are approached from a dynamic concept of technology.

 

This research deepens the knowledge of the dynamics of tool production and resource exploitation, rather than just analyzing the procurement and manufacturing practices. The differences in and continuities of the technological preferences of the early hunter-gatherer societies are recorded, especially regarding the use and design of edges. This study can be considered a model of how to analyze the variability in use of artifacts from a perspective which goes beyond the idea of tools having a univocal nature.