Nuevos datos de estimacion de edad y estacion de muerte de pinnipedos en la region del canal Beagle, Tierra del Fuego (Argentina)

For decades, studies of past pinniped exploitation in the Beagle Channel were mainly based on the zooarchaeological assemblages in the Second Component of Tunel I site, dated to the middle Holocene. In recent years, the systematic analysis of further contexts located at different sectors of the north coast of the Beagle Channel have provided new information, especially for the late Holocene. While a hunting pattern focused on adult and subadult males of A. australis remain apparent in middle Holocene assemblages, age and sex profiles show a more heterogeneous pattern in later moments of the archaeological sequence. In this paper, new estimations on the age and season of death of pinniped specimens recovered from archaeological contexts in the Beagle Channel are presented. The results, based on thin sections of canine teeth, indicate variation from the age profiles previously obtained from zooarchaeological studies. The results also indicate a seasonally diverse pattern in pinniped capture during the late Holocene. It is argued that pinniped harvesting strategies probably varied in the Beagle Channel throughout the Holocene.