Late Holocene lithic points from a Southern Brazilian mound: The Pororó site

Abstract

Most lithic industries associated with hunter-gatherergroups in Eastern South America, especially the ones with points present, date tothe Early Holocene, with some minor industries and lithic points typologiespersisting until the Middle Holocene and, more rarely, until the Late Holocene.This is the case for the Garivaldinense lithic industry associated pointstypologies. In this article we present the technological analysis of the pointsidentified at the Pororó site, located in central Rio Grande do Sul State,Brazil. The site is an artificial mound dated to around 2,500 BP. We applied anestablished protocol for analysis of stemmed points considering metric,morphological and technological features that allowed us to classify the artefactsin typologies. We identified two types of points associated to theGarivaldinense lithic industry: the Montenegro and Garivaldinense types. Wehave also identified a new type that has never been described before andproposed to refer to it as the Pororó type. At least one Pay Paso point wasidentified at the site, although this type of point is not yet known at other sitesof this region and chronology. The results indicate persistence of theGarivaldinense Culture from the Early to Late Holocene, as well astechnological innovation during the Late Holocene.