Browsing by Author "Herrera, Katherine A."

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    First record of cf. Aenocyon dirus (Leidy, 1858) (Carnivora, Canidae), from the Upper Pleistocene of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile
    (2022) Caro, Francisco J.; Labarca, Rafael; Prevosti, Francisco J.; Villavicencio, Natalia; Jarpa, Gabriela M.; Herrera, Katherine A.; Correa-Lau, Jacqueline; Latorre, Claudio; Santoro, Calogero M.
    Fossil records of canids are rare and incomplete in South America. In Chile, all well-identified taxa are part of the "South American Canid Clade" and come from sites located in southern Patagonia. Here, we report the first record for Chile of a taxon of the "Canis clade," assigned to cf. Aenocyon dirus. The fossil remains consist of a partially complete left hind limb, exposed by aeolian deflation, which facilitated its discovery at an isolated setting in Quebrada Mani, named QM38 site, in the southern sector of the Pampa del Tamarugal basin, part of the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. Measurements of the fossil are larger than the Protocyon troglodytes, falling in the smaller size range of A. dirus and within the larger range of Theriodictis platensis. Its morphological features compared with bone references of large extinct canids show that the fossil belongs to a small-sized Aenocyon. The remains occur in surface silty clays deposited by an alluvial fan that was active in the Pampa del Tamarugal basin in the Late Pleistocene. A radiocarbon date from bone apatite yielded an age of 14,660 cal years BP, placing it within the first half of the Central Andean Pluvial Event when this basin was wetter, well vegetated, and inhabited by large, medium, and small herbivores. No other large predator records are known from this basin, and our find affords a more complete view of this ecosystem which thrived in the hyperarid core of the Atacama during the Late Pleistocene.
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    FROM THE PACIFIC TO THE TROPICAL FORESTS: NETWORKS OF SOCIAL INTERACTION IN THE ATACAMA DESERT, LATE IN THE PLEISTOCENE
    (2019) Santoro, Calogero M.; Gayo, Eugenia M.; Capriles, Jose M.; Rivadeneira, Marcelo M.; Herrera, Katherine A.; Mandakovic, Valentina; Rallo, Monica; Rech, Jason A.; Cases, Barbara; Briones, Luis; Olguin, Laura; Valenzuela, Daniela; Borrero, Luis A.; Ugalde, Paula C.; Roihhanuner, Francisco; Latorre, Claudio; Szpak, Paul
    The social groups that initially inhabited the hyper arid core of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile during the late Pleistocene integrated a wide range of local, regional and supra regional goods and ideas for their social reproduction as suggested by the archaeological evidence contained in several open camps in Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT). Local resources for maintaining their every-day life, included stone raw material, wood, plant and animal fibers, game, and fresh water acquired within a radius of similar to 30 km (ca. 1-2 days journey). At a regional scale, some goods were introduced from the Pacific coast (60-80 km to the west, ca. 3-4 days journey), including elongated rounded cobbles used as hammer stones in lithic production, and shells, especially from non-edible species of mollusks. From the Andes (ranging 80-150 km to the east, ca. 5-8 days of journey), they obtained camelid fiber, obsidian and a high-quality chalcedony, in addition to sharing knowledge on projectile point designs (Patapatane and Tuina type forms). Pieces of wood of a tropical forest tree species (Ceiba spp.) from the east Andean lowlands (600 km away, ca. 30 days of journey) were also brought to the PdT. While local goods were procured by the circulation of people within the PdT, the small number of foreign items would have been acquired through some sort of exchange networks that integrated dispersed local communities throughout several ecosystems. These networks may have been a key factor behind the success exhibited by these early huntergatherers in the hyper arid ecosystems of the Atacama Desert at the end of the Pleistocene.