Junius Bird Collections from Sites Rockshelter 1, 2 and 3 (Beagle Channel, Patagonia, Chile)

Summary

Between 1933 and 1980 Junius Bird, researcher from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) New York, traveled through southern Chile where he carried a wide array of archaeological excavations and studies. Towards the beginning of this period, Bird conducted extensive excavations in three sites in the Southern most region of Fuego-Patagonia. Collections from these sites are currently housed at the Division of Anthropology AMNH, and were recently analyzed as part of the activities of Grant FONDECYT 1140939.

The sites are located in Tierra del Fuego and the Navarino islands (east and west of the Beagle channel respectively). These sites, Rockshelter 1, 2 and 3, are large shell middens associated with rock shelters. Lithic and bone technology information from the collections is presented and assessed. Data collected from the assemblages is compared to the records and the scarce information of these archaeological sites extant today. The results provide a general overview of archaeological marine hunter-gatherers, highlight the importance of raw materials among them, and further inform about their distinctive technological traits during the second half of the Late Holocene. Subsistence, stratigraphic and context information is based on the detailed record of Junius Bird’s field notes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22432