Abstract

TOLEDO, Marcelo Javier. Ameghino en contexto. Nuevos datos históricos y revisión geoarqueológica del sitio Arroyo Frías (1870 - 1874): Mercedes, provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rev. Mus. Argent. Cienc. Nat. [online]. 2016, vol.18, n.2, pp.147-187. ISSN 1853-0400.

In 1881 Ameghino described the fossil human remains of Arroyo Frías as its more relevant finding, considering it to be the oldest of Pampean sites since the remains were unearthed from his Pliocene Upper Pampean. He realized this finding by the end of 1872, announces it to Burmeister in January of 1874 and, in September he continued the excavation with professor Ramorino. In spite of that, he will not obtain any official recognition since, in 1876, the commissioners of the Sociedad Científica Argentina explored the area of the Cañada de Rocha creek, believing they were in the Frías valley. Victims of this confusion Moreno, Zeballos and Lista declared that Ameghino mistakenly attributed an older “diluvian” age to very recent geologic layers, strongly eroding his reputation and scientific credibility. It is analyzed here the historical context of this disagreement that stigmatized for decades the archeological prospection of Pampean plains, while we present a geologic model with new 14C and OSL dates, in order to understand why Ameghino erroneously attributed a great antiquity to these layers. Also arise other geoarchaeological issues when these new data are confronted with the detailed descriptions of this author.

Keywords : Ameghino; Frías; Lujanian; Zeballos; Pampean.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )