WHAT IS ESTANCIA LA MARÍA?
Estancia La Maria is a ranch at
Argentinian Patagonia recognized as an archaeological locality with an extension
of 22.000 hectares. It holds a cultural sequence from the late Pleistocene
until recent times: 10.999 +/- 55 years 14C BP. 10.967 +/- 55 years 14C BP.
10.250 +/- 110 years 14C BP. 9090 +/- 40 years 14C BP. 7.970 +/- 40 years
14C BP. 7.665 +/- 75 years 14C AP. 4.500 +/- 40 years 14C BP. It been divided
in has 12 sectors determined by archaeological, environmental and landscape
characteristics, holding 84 caves and rock shelters with rupestrian representations,
many prehistoric surface sites, quarries and lithic workshops (Paunero 2000;
2002; Paunero et al 2001; 2002).
The ranch is managed by its owners:
Fernando Behm and Josefina
Ortolá, who are excellent collaborators in our research work.
On one hand, they offer information and support to our tasks, and, on the
other hand, they have incorporated scientific contents and formation referred
to preservation and care of cultural patrimony, which they apply with energy
for the consolidation of "Estancia
La María" as an Interpretation Center and Site Museum, in
the mark of a well recognized Archaeological - Touristic project, as it has
been working in a growing way since year 1994.
LOCATION
The archaeological locality "Estancia
La María" is located 150 kilometers away from the city of Puerto
San Julián, departamento de Magallanes, at Santa Cruz province. Its
geographical location can be specified by the delimitation of a rectangle
located between the parallels 48° 24 ' S. and 48° 36 ' S. and between
the meridians 68° 50 ' W. and 68° 60 ' W. The house of the ranch is
located at 48° 25 ' S. and 68° 55 ' W. The archaeological sites known
at the town are to an approximate height from 130 to 450 meters over the level
of the sea.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE
La María highlights undoubtedly
for its rock art manifestations, which are rich in variety and quantity, and
also for its possibilities of archaeological studies in many avenues lines:
Stratigraphy, Technological, Spatial and Functional Analysis, Zooarchaeology,
Actualistic Studies, Landscape and Experimental Investigations, etc.
An outstanding feature of its parietal
art is the polychromic used in a great quantity of motifs, where you can find
red, ocher, yellow, black, gray, white, rosy, violets, blued and a great range
of tones; gathering in many opportunities 4 and up to 5 colors in the same
drawing, and also conforming integrated panels of motifs, where they took
advantage of hollows and natural relief to give as a result a group composition
of extraordinary abstraction and symbology .
Among the motifs we can point out:
hands in negative and hands in positive; scenes where guanacos appear running
or standing; with their breedings; in attitude of drinking water; pregnant
females; they present a variety of color and sizes (from 3 cm up to 70 cm),
with or without delineated border; men lined up or in circle or, with knots
and with probable spears. We also find concentric circles of lines and of
points (interpreted as suns, strategy diagrams for the control of the flocks
or like sources of water). Lines of points and in zigzag, spirals of lines
and of points; and in smaller proportion other animals as choiques, felines
or foxes. The motifs are classified in: Representative, Abstract, Abstract
representative and Geometric. Among the representative ones we include the
footprints, the hands and feet in negative and positive and zoomorphs in negative.
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Estancia La María has generated
important scientific information and in the same way, presently it is an archaeological
locality with enormous study possibilities and usefulness that we can group
in three areas:
Research: about the first stages
of the peopling of Patagonia and consequently of the first Americans, generating
information about technological, economic, artistic and ideological aspects
of the societies that occupied the region from the final Pleistocene until
the times of the human occupation of European origin and about the paleoenvironments
in which they were lived and were expressed.
Education: in this sense it
is evident that the usefulness of the results impacts in the reconstruction
of that portion of regional human past that doesn't have written history and
that many times it is obviated in the school texts or in the taught histories.
These results can be exhibited not only in the university academic environment,
but rather they include the extension, the museums, the different educational
official levels and its diffusion at wide level.
Tourism: the Archaeology
and consequently their archaeological sites, like in this case La María,
occupies an important place in the construction of a concept of tourism, where
the trip ceases to be only a passive observation to become a learning of the
environment, the history and the society of the visited area. La María
gathers all these conditions.
PRESENT ENVIROMENT
From the biogeographical point
of view it corresponds to the Distrito Patagónico Central of the Provincia
Patagónica (Cabrera and Willink 1980). Its current vegetation is of
the type scrub steppe. Because of their adaptation to the strong winds, the
bushes of resinous and coriaceous leaves highlight, these are associated to
gramineous. These associations become denser in the canyons and in the lower
sectors. The characteristic species are: molle
(Schinus polygamus patagonicus), calafate
(Berberis sp), coirón (Stipa sp), mata
negra (Verbena tridens, Chiliotrichum diffusum), the so called
pampa tea (Satureja darwinii) used by the residents as a sedative
and digestive beverage and the duraznillo (Colliguaja integerrima)
this last one doesn't grow beyond the 400 meters over the level of the sea
in the region, reason why it is an excellent natural indicator of height.
Among the autochthonous fauna it
is necessary to point out the guanaco
(Lama guanicoe) and among the birds, the choique
or American Ostrich (Pterocnemia pennata), as the two better known
species for the visitors of the region. But we should highlight that the fauna
of the area is a very rich one, we can mention for example, the armadillos
like the piche (Zaedyus pichiy), among the marsupials the comadreja
overa or weasel (Didelphis sp). Among the carnivores the gray fox (Canis
(Pseudalopex) griseus) and the red fox (Canis (Pseudalopex)
culpaeus), the puma (Felis concolor), the zorrino (Conepatus
humboldti) and the wild cat (Felis colocolo), among others. The
rodents are very abundant not only in variety but also in number, among the
main ones we can example the mara or patagonical hare (Dolichotis
patagonum), in high risk of extinction; several tuco-tuco species (Ctenomys
sp), numerous mice or rats from the Family Cricetidae and cuises
from the Family Caviidae.
Among the numerous species of birds
we can mention as important, the ducks (Anas, Oxyura, Merganeta),
bustards (Chloephaga), the black neck swan (Cygnus), the martinetas
(Eudromia elegans) and the predators
(Polyborus y Milvago). There are also doves (Zenaida)
and numerous other birds (Turdus, Mimus, Microsittace).
According to a geologic approach,
La María is located in the area of the Patagonican Plateau, more specifically
in the structural sector called Nesocratón of Deseado which embraces
an extensive surface limited to the north by the Basin of San Jorge's Gulf
and to the south by the river Chico of the Magallanic Basin, being excluded
from this sector the Patagonic Cordillera.
The rocky outcrops that contain the
caverns and shelters studied particularly by the Archaeology, are constituted
by ignimbritas of pale ocher color with slight variations of tonality,
pumiced aspect and porphyritic texture that correspond to the Chon Aike
Formation and La Matilde Formation (Archangelsky 1967).
These geologic formations - jurassic-cretacic
- are rich in raw materials of excellent quality for the flaking and retouch
(sílex, xilópalo or petrified wood, silicified toba, chalcedony),
that in fact were used during the extensive past by the prehistoric cultures
from Patagonia that according to the investigations, have made scrapers, side-scrapers,
knifes and very complex bifacial projectile points with this material of the
area; that is to say, all their instrumental for the hunt, butchering, consumption,
works in leather, in wood, etc. In the same way, they have also provided of
minerals: oxides of irons and manganese, plaster and silicates, used as pigments
and fixers for the realization of the old rupestrian paintings, so finely
conserved in this place (Cardich 1979; Paunero 1992; 2.000).
REFERENCES
Archangelsky, S.
1967. Estudio de la Formación Baqueró, Cretácico inferior
de Santa Cruz, Argentina. Revista del Museo de La Plata (N.S.) Paleontología
5: 3-171.
Cabrera, A. y Willink, A.
1980 Biogeografía de América Latina. Monografías nº
13, OEA. Washington, D.C.
Cardich, A. 1987 Arqueología
de Los Toldos y El Ceibo (Provincia de Santa Cruz, Argentina). Investigaciones
Paleoindias al sur de la línea ecuatorial, Estudios Atacameños.
8: 98-117.
Paunero, R. S. 1992 Manos pintadas
en negativo: un ensayo de experimentación. Revista de Estudios Regionales
CEIDER N°9. Pag. 47-68. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Mendoza.
Paunero, R. S. 2000 Relevamiento,
Arte Rupestre y Sectorización de la Localidad Arqueológica La
María. Capítulo 6. Guía de Campo de la Visita a las Localidades
Arqueológicas: La Colonización del Sur de América Durante
la Transición Pleistoceno / Holoceno. Editor: Miotti, Paunero, Salemme,
Cattáneo. La Plata.
Paunero, R.S. 2001 Localidades
La María y Cerro Tres Tetas (Santa Cruz, Argentina): Aportes al poblamiento
humano temprano del Cono Sur de América. X Congreso Uruguayo de Arqueología.
Montevideo.
Paunero, R. S. 2002 The presence
of a pleistocenic colonizing culture in La Maria archaeological locality:
Casa del Minero 1. Ancient Evidences For Paleo South Americans: From Where
The South Winds Blow, edited by Center for the Studies of the First Americans
(CSFA) and Texas A&M University Press.
Paunero, R.S.; Albertengo,P.; Cueto,
M.; Dávila, A.; Frank, A.; Olivera, A. y Piva, C.2001 Sitio Casa
del Minero 1, localidad arqueológica La María: nuevas evidencias
sobre ocupación humana pleistocénica en Santa Cruz. XIV Congreso
Nacional de Arqueología Argentina. Resúmenes: 77. Rosario.
Paunero,Rafael S.; Cueto, Manuel;
Frank, Ariel; Ghidini, Gabriela; Rosales, Gabriela; Skarbun, Fabiana.
2002 Comunicación Sobre Campaña Arqueológica 2002 En
Localidad La María, Santa Cruz. V Jornadas de Arqueología de
la Patagonia. Buenos Aires.
