During the Late Holocene, the process of regional differentiation which began to become visible during the Middle Holocene produced a wide variety of historical trajectories and adaptive patterns. Moreover, several significant changes occurred, such as reduction in residential mobility and the development of
Wide intraregional interaction networks. Along with other important innovations, such as pottery and horticulture, this suggests the development of social complexity. This process is well exemplified in the cerritos of the eastern campos and in the Andes.
During this time at least three main subsistence strategies can be identified among the pampas foragers: the hunter-gatherer of the xerophitic forest, the hunter-gatherers of the open grasslands, and the hunter-gatherers-fishers of rivers and lagoons. During this period, guanaco was the main food resource in addition to pampas deer, armadillo, and rhea. Plain and incised pottery is also present in this area at c. 3000 years BP although in low frequencies. During the Late Holocene, changes in mobility, subsistence, and technology would indicate a process of economic and social intensification. In Patagonia, the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers were heavily dependent on guanaco although on the slopes of the cordillera, the gathering of pifiones (the fruits of the pehusin Araucaria araucana) from the forest was a significant, although seasonal, resource.
In the Delta and in the lower Paranti and Uruguay Rivers, the archaeological record shows some peculiarities in the basic hunter-gatherer-fisher adaptive pattern. In one way, it could be partially explained by the penetration of a ‘branch’ of the Dominio Amazcinico, region which forms a subtropical forest in the delta and along shores of the main rivers. Plant resources, especially fruit of the pindci palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana), were exploited recurrently on the island of the Delta. Moreover, the historical record of the sixteenth century indicates that the lower Paranti and Uruguay Rivers were occupied by several ethnic groups (Chanti, Chanti-Timbii, Mbeguti, etc.) and some of them practiced small-scale horticulture.
In the lower and middle Paranti-Uruguay region, several changes occurred during the Late Holocene. Between 2500 and 5000 years BP, pottery entered into the area and around 2000 years BP, the first canoe people are recorded in this fluvial area. It seems that horticulture also became a part of their subsistence during this time, probably in the last 2000 years and related to the expansion of the Tupi-Guarani people. In the lower Paranti-Uruguay region, a rich pottery tradition known as the ‘Goya-Malabrigo Culture’ appeared c. 1000 years BP. Well represented in many sites on the floodplain and islands, this pottery is characterized by abundant zoomorphic representations (i. e., mainly birds). Subsistence patterns were based on a mixed economy of small and medium mammals, birds, fish, mollusks, and products from the forest (i. e., especially palm fruits). Small-scale tropical horticulture might also have been practiced although archaeological evidence is still inconclusive.
In the southern planalto, several traditions have been proposed (Itarare, Casa de Pedra, and Taquara) which would reflect the regional continuities of the Humaita Tradition as a result of the adoption of pottery, horticulture, the construction of pit-houses, and certain techniques of lithic polishing. However, the recent work of Noelli challenges this interpretation by proposing that this Late Holocene population was the southern expansion of the Ge linguistic family, being ancestors of the ethnographic Kaingang and Xokleng groups. The early Gs; population of the area would have been displaced from the proximity of the main rivers to the higher and colder region of the planalto by the Guarani Indians between 2000 and 1000 years BP. The Guarani are a group of populations, well known in archaeological, historical, linguistic, and ethnographic terms, belonging to a Tupi cultural matrix. The origin of these populations would be in the Madeira-Guapore Basin, in the southwest of Amazonia. In a process of continuous demographic growth and territorial expansion, they spread through several regions of southeastern South America, including most of the campos and the pla-nalto, part of Chaco, and the northeastern part of the pampas. They reached their southern limit, the lower Paranii-Plata Rivers, at least at c. 700 years BP. In terms of social-political organization and kinship, the Guarani formed several nuclear families around a political/religious leader. The subsistence of the Guarani population was quite generalized, based on horticulture, gathering of plants and insects, hunting, and fishing. They cultivated about 39 plant genera subdivided in at least 159 cultivars; among them were manioc (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomea batata), maize, and beans. In spite of the great geographical expansion and the tendency to systematically incorporate non-Guarani people, pottery maintains a great uniformity. The typically painted and corrugated pottery is found in distant locations, thousands of kilometers apart and with very little variation indicating that it was produced in the context of a rigidly stylistic and highly standardized pattern. The chronological span of dated Guarani sites in the region is between c. 2000 and 200 years BP but it has to be taken into account that well-established Guaranii populations are still living in the region. The Guaranii expansion into the tropical and temperate lowlands of the Southern Cone produced significant cultural changes. They introduced several cultigens, and some technological and stylistic patterns, but overall, they spread a new mode of life among the local population.
When the European Conquest began at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the life of foragers of the pampas, campos, and Patagonian foragers changed dramatically. Adoption of the horse, a new relationship with a neighboring group, and the disarticulation of the traditional economic cycle were some of the results of this asymmetrical interaction. When wild horses and cattle flooded the pampas, the Chilean Araucanos arrived as they were attracted to this new marketable resource. By then, the local foragers remained trapped between the well-organized Araucanian chiefdom and the slow advance toward the south of the colonial frontier. By mid-eighteenth century, the few campos foragers became extinct and the pampas foragers that still existed were integrated with the Araucanos and disappeared as a distinctive ethnic group. At the end of the nineteenth century, with military campaigns organized by the Argentinean government, the Patagonia Indians known as the Tehuelches, as well as the Araucanos, were either killed by the military or, after a period in prison, relocated to marginal and poor areas.
World History
