CONCLUSION

The pampas and campos grasslands were the backdrop for the historical trajectories of foraging populations for the last ca. 12,000 years. This is the bottom line for the peopling of this region due to the fact that nothing has been securely dated that pre-dates this period. For nearly 8,000 years, these populations maintained a foraging way of life within the context of an increase in intra-regional variation. At ca. 4000 years ago the first evidence of plant domestication appeared in the cerritos of the eastern campos, producing one of the main changes in the region. It seems that maize, squash and beans were the main cultigens and manihot was significant only in the northern sector of the campos. A millennium later, pottery, probably with a subtropical lowlands origin, is recorded in several localities in both the pampas and campos. Moreover, at roughly the same time the technology of bow and arrow spread throughout the region. These changes generated transformation in the Late Holocene foragers and in some groups there began a process of intensification that in certain areas induced various degrees of social complexity. A violent colonization process heavily impacted all of these societies, causing the disappearance of the great majority of them.

Acknowledgments This chapter is one product of the INCUAPA (Investigaciones Arque-ologicas y Paleontologicas del Cuaternario Pampeano) research program, which receives grants from the CONICET, ANPCYT and UNCPBA. I have received stimulating suggestions form Irina Capdepont, Rodrigo Angrizani, Gustavo Martinez, and Rafael Curtoni.

Heidi Luchsinger helped with the English.