ARCHAEOLOGY OF URUGUAY BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE YOUNGER DRYAS

The plains of Uruguay are a privileged place of Southeast of South America to study different aspects related to the first Americans. This paper aims to give an overview of the poorly known archaeology of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition of Uruguay and presents in detail the recent field investigations and discus some aspects of variation in technology and morphology of Paleoindian points of South Cone. From the archaeological point of view there is very good stratigraphic resolution in archaeological sites for the Transition Pleistoceno-Holoceno with dates 14C between 11,200-8500 yr. BP. In the Pay Paso Locality has been discovered 6 new archaeological sites and megamammals remains. Recently in Pay Paso site 1, 60 m² were excavated and the first registrations for Uruguay of Pleistocene fauna were discovered associate contextual and stratigraphic with archaeological material in a Paleoindian cultural component dated between 9300-9100 yr. BP. The tool kit of these people includes: projectile points, end and side scrapers, bifacial and blade knife, bifacial thinning flakes with use-wears, cores and multiple tools. Almost a hundred of “fishtail” projectile points type fluted and unfluted have been recovered in surface archaeological sites of Uruguay. Recent discoveries of two large fluted “fishtail” spears points with measures of long of 109 and 107 mm broken in the tip, that practically duplicate in long to that of the “classic” size of these type of points recovered in Fell Cave. The remarkable and extraordinary large of these weapons are important to discuss the variation in lithic technology of Paleoindian points of south cone. Recent studies and morphological observations have allowed to distinguish two variants of fishtail points. Finally an idealized model of resharpening for these projectile points is presented and discussed.