Landscapes of La Maria archaeological locality, Central Plateau of Santa Cruz. Argentina. Distributional analysis

In this paper, we study the patterns of landscape use at La Maria archaeological locality (Central Plateau of Santa Cruz, Argentina). This locality was inhabited by hunter-gatherer societies from the Final Pleistocene until the Late Holocene. These societies selected the places to carry out their daily tasks, constructing archaeological landscapes with different use intensity and/or redundancy patterns. We analyze how the use of each landscape varied considering their characteristics. We also evaluate the role of the locality in the regional settlement. We examine the distribution of lithic artifacts recorded during nine systematic surface surveys. By using geographical information systems (GIS), we calculate the density of lithic artifacts, the percentage of sectors with lithic remains, the type of distribution, and the Kernel density. Results show that there was a differential use of space, where the margin of Laguna Grande stands out in a context of high-intensity use of the entire locality. Results are consistent with previous research, which indicated that the locality was a landscape of great importance for hunter-gatherer societies of the Central Plateau of Santa Cruz