Starchy food residue on a potsherd from a late Holocene hunter-gatherer site in Argentine Patagonia: towards the visibility of wild underground storage organs

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present recent advances in the microbotanical analyses of an organic residue on a potsherd from a late Holocene hunter-gatherer site in Argentine Patagonia, which is the first evidence of this kind for the processing of starchy food. Standard methods were carried out for starch grain recovery and morphometric analysis, care being taken in the prevention of cross-contamination and evaluation of post-depositional factors. Diagnostic features of the ancient starch grains recovered were compared against those from a list, available in the bibliography, of plants potentially processed in pottery, but no match was found. An anatomical and starch grain reference collection was established with three of the most frequently consumed traditional wild underground storage organs (USOs) of Patagonia, Alstroemeria aurea Graham, Tropaeolum porifolium Cav. and Diposis patagonica Skottsb., in order to compare these against the archaeobotanical record. We suggest that T. aff. porifolium (and probably also A. aff. aurea) were processed in the pot from which the sherd came, and discuss these results in terms of a better understanding of the role of wild USOs in subsistence and the possible cooking methods used in hunter-gatherer societies in Argentine Patagonia.

Colección de referencia de maderas para el estudio del registro antracológico del litoral Atlántico Patagonia Sur de la República Argentina (Provincias de Santa Cruz y Tierra del Fuego)

“…Por otro lado, se llevaron a cabo estudios antracológicos en el extremo sur de Patagonia, más precisamente en el área litoral de Santa Cruz y de Tierra del Fuego. En la primera, se han estudiado varios sitios arqueológicos costeros de los cuales se analizaron gran variedad de restos vegetales como son los carbones, frutos, hojas y microrrestos procedentes de artefactos de molienda (Ciampagna, 2015(Ciampagna, , 2016(Ciampagna, , 2018Ciampagna et al, 2016Ciampagna et al, , 2020Ciampagna et al, , 2021. Para su interpretación se generó un modelo de uso de plantas por los grupos humanos sobre la base de un exhaustivo estudio de fuentes etnohistóricas de Patagonia (Ciampagna & Capparelli, 2012), mientras que para el litoral atlántico de Tierra del Fuego los estudios son más recientes, y se han realizado exclusivamente sobre restos antracológicos y carpológicos del sitio CSP2017 (Franch et al, 2021).…”