The social use of space in a shell midden: Testing ethnoarchaeological data from Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) with intra-site spatial analyses

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This paper presents a part of an ethnoarchaeological research whose main objective is the development of methodological and conceptual instruments to advance the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. We have proposed ethnoarchaeological experimentation in order to contrast the relationship between spatial organization and social relationships for evaluate the resolution level of intra-site analysis combining the use of social categories (deriving from the socioeconomic analysis of an ethnographic documented Hunter-Gatherer society) with the systematic record recovered in a site of the same society, both from a quantitative and qualitative approach. The processes of formation of the Túnel VII site have been differentiated from the interpretation of refitting analysis and spatial distribution maps and the detailed analysis of zooarchaeological data. However, the results presented in this paper have to be contrasted with an integrated analysis of lithic and bone technology remains in order to analyse the overall distribution of by-products from production and consumption activities. Moreover, results concerning the structure of spatial data point to the need to test spatial interpolation methods designed to overcome the geostatistical restriction on the homogeneity of the surface.