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Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites:

An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina)
Débora Zurroa,, Marco Madellab, Ivan Brizc, Assumpció Vilaa
a
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Institució Milà i Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC),
C/Egipcı´aques, 15, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
b
ICREA—Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Institució Milà i Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC),
C/Egipcı´aques, 15, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
c
Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King’s Manor, York Y01 7EP, UK

Abstract

Phytoliths were analysed from shell-midden samples from the Yamana site Túnel VII, located on the northern shore of the Beagle
Channel, in Tierra del Fuego. A detailed and intensive sampling strategy was applied to understand the variability and distribution of
phytolith assemblages in the hut occupation layer, which resulted from both taphonomy and the working processes carried out in the
dwelling.
This investigation has demonstrated that a proper sampling strategy must take into consideration the research questions. It also must
be capable of indicating the inherent variability of the phytolith record, related to both natural and social causes. The use of a single
sample to represent the entire archaeological context should not be considered a standard practice for phytolith analysis, especially when
the studied context is a milieu of several, and sometimes unrelated, social actions.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction agricultural settlements (Shahack-Gross et al., 2003,

The present work is a theoretical and methodological
contribution to the understanding of the use of phytolith
analysis in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites. From the metho-
dological point of view, the main aim is to corroborate the
hypothesis that the phytolith record of an occupation layer
is heterogeneous and that this heterogeneity is related to
the activities carried out during the occupation, as for any
other archaeological material (Wilk and Rathje, 1982;
Ashmore, 2002). Depositional and post-depositional taph-
onomy can play a role in shaping the deposited assem-
blages (Madella and Power-Jones, 1996; Madella, 1999).
However, it is clear that, at least in pastoral and
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 934426575x295;
fax: +34 934430071.
E-mail addresses: debora@bicat.csic.es (D. Zurro),
marco.madella@icrea.es (M. Madella), ib504@york.ac.uk (I. Briz),
avila@bicat.csic.es (A. Vila).
2004), its effect does not obliterate the original phytolith
signature.
The analysis of space is fundamental for understanding
past societies (e.g., Binford, 1983; Rigaud and Simek, 1991;
Allison, 1999; Ashmore, 2002). Undeniably, social prac-
tices (both production and consumption) cannot be
understood without a spatial perspective because space is
socially constructed (e.g., Hendon, 1996; Wünsch, 1996a, b;
Brumbach and Jarvenpa, 1997). The analysis of space is
even more critical to the understanding of social organiza-
tion in those situations, such as past fisher–hunter–gatherer
societies, where it is often more difficult to interpret the
archaeological record due to the scarceness of remains and/
or preservation (Wünsch, 1991). Also, the apparent
absence of certain resources in the archaeological record
is often interpreted as indicating non-use. However, this
absence can be related to the ‘‘invisibility’’ of the materials
(e.g., microscopic) or because the appropriate recovery
technique was not applied (e.g., flotation, chemical

1040-6182/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007

Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2 D. Zurro et al. / Quaternary International ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

analyses, etc.). The case of plant resources in fisher–hun-
ter–gatherer sites can be considered a typical example of
this problem. In Palaeolithic or Mesolithic archaeology,
there has been very often what we would consider a biased
interpretation of the use of resources. The focus was
frequently on those resources that were easily and routinely
recovered, namely lithics and bone remains (Warren and
Conneller, 2006). Lithics and bones have been interpreted
as representing all aspects of the social and economical life
of fisher–hunter–gatherer societies, creating a biased
picture of these prehistoric people. Recent works have
began to show that, where preserved or when the proper
technique is applied, plant remains in prehistory can be an
important component of the archaeological record (e.g.,
Nadel et al., 1994; Kubiak-Martens, 1996, 2002; Madella et
al., 1998; Nadel and Werker, 1999; Zapata, 2000; Mason
and Hather, 2002; Robinson and Harild, 2002).
Phytoliths, for their chemical and physical character-
istics, are the most robust plant remains, and become part
of the archaeological record without the need of any
previous preservational process (Piperno, 1988). It is also
important to stress that the significance of phytoliths
exceeds the mere taxonomic identification, providing
paramount information on the general utilization of plant
resources (Zurro, 2002, 2006, and references therein;
Harvey and Fuller, 2005). The Yamana settlements of the
Beagle Channel (Estévez et al., 2007) offer the possibility to
apply phytolith studies in strictly controlled conditions.
There is an extensive ethnographical record, the plant
taxonomic variability is low, and some of the taphonomical
effects (e.g., diagenesis) are reduced because of the young
age of the sites.
As a first step towards an understanding of Yamana
social activities, there is a need to resolve a sub-set of
archaeological questions that will allow evaluation of the
viability of this approach:
 Are phytoliths part of the archaeological deposits of the
Yamana sites?
 Is it possible to use phytoliths to identify the production
processes that imply plant resources in Yamana sites?
 Is it possible to identify the taxa involved in these
production processes by using a reference collection of
local plants?
 Is the phytolith evidence supporting or refuting the
ethnographical record?
2. Regional setting
The southernmost part of Argentina and Chile is a maze
of channels and islands crossed by the Beagle Channel
(Fig. 1). This area is characterized by a widely fluctuating
sub-Antarctic climate, with the constant presence of wind,
rain, and low temperatures (annual mean temperature
between 1 and 9.3 1C; Iturraspe and Schroeder, 1999). The
vegetation cover is a patchwork mostly composed of
tundra and Nothofagus forests (Heusser, 1989; Markgraf,
1993; Romanyà et al., 2005). This area was inhabited by
groups of fishers–hunters–gatherers from ca. 6500 BP to
the first half of the XX century (Orquera and Piana,
1999a). These groups, initially called Yaghanes, became
known as Yamanas from the work of the Austrian
ethnographer Gusinde (Vila, 2000). The Yamana were a
nomadic society, which moved around a small territory
using canoes (Gusinde, 1937; Orquera and Piana, 1999b),
and whose subsistence was mainly based on the consump-
tion of molluscs, fish, and sea mammals (Juan-Muns, 1992;
Estévez and Martı́nez, 1997; Orquera, 1999; Estévez

Fig. 1. Map of Tierra del Fuego.

Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
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et al., 2001; Mameli and Estévez, 2004). There is extensive
ethnographic information regarding the everyday life of
Yamana people and their subsistence activities (Hyades,
1885; Hyades and Deniker, 1891; Gusinde, 1937) as well as
a thorough archaeological record (see, for example,
Orquera and Piana, 1999a, b; Álvarez, 2004; Estévez and
Vila, 2006; Zurro et al., 2006). Vegetable food has been
ethnographically documented. However, this had a sec-
ondary role in the diet, which is centred on animal proteins.
Indeed, in Tierra del Fuego there are only a few species that
produce edible fruits or roots and, generally, these are of
small size and are produced with a marked seasonality. The
major use of plant resources by the Yamanas was for fuel
(wood) and as raw material for tool and utensil production
(wood, bark, mosses, grasses, sedges, etc.).
Since the mid-1980s there have been several archae-
ological projects carried out by Spanish and Argentinean
teams along the north shore of the Beagle Channel (Vila
et al., 2007). These sites are shell middens that were formed
by the social activities of human groups exploiting the
coastal and maritime resources, including large amounts of
molluscs (Orquera, 1999; Orquera and Piana, 2000). The
middens are very evident features of the landscape because
of their typical crater-like shapes, which originate from the
accumulation of waste material (mainly shells) around the
huts. Orquera and Piana (1992, 2000) describe these
deposits as packs of interlocked valves that are separated
from each other by stratigraphically discordant surfaces
and, occasionally, by very thin layers of organic-rich
sediments. One of the major and better-studied sites is
Túnel VII, on the coast about 12 km east of Ushuaia
(Estévez and Vila, 1996; Vila et al., 1997) (541490 1500 S,
681090 2000 W) and dated to the XVIII–XIX centuries
(Fig. 2). The structure was composed of a central
depression ca. 3.5 m in diameter with a hearth sequence
located in the centre of the hut. The site was excavated in
its full extension (105 m2) to investigate the several
occupational phases and the inter-relationship of the
occupational layers and waste lenses that composed the
Fig. 2. Photograph of Túnel VII site, courtesy of J. Estévez.
Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
3
shell midden (Orquera, 1996; Orquera and Piana, 1996).
The applied excavation methodology allowed identification
of very thin deposits that separated the superimposed
hearths, each one representing a single occupation (Estévez
and Vila, 2000). In Túnel VII it was possible to identify 10
re-occupations of the hut (Estévez and Vila, 2006; Briz
et al., in press). A combination of dendrochronology,
radiocarbon dates, and European material found during
the excavation dated the length of occupation from the end
of the XVIII to the end of the XIX century (Piana and
Orquera, 1996). The anthracological analysis identified two
predominant species in the charred assemblage: evergreen
beech (Nothofagus betuloides, ‘‘guindo’’) and pickwood
(Maytenus magellanica, ‘‘leña dura’’) (Piqué, 1999).
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Archaeological material
The present work investigated one of the lowermost sub-
units (B355) of Túnel VII, which is associated with the
third occupation episode (Estévez and Vila, 2006). This
layer was unambiguously related to a single hearth episode
(assumed to be the marker of one occupation episode) and
it was clearly separated from other sub-units. The presence
of several large charcoal fragments allowed dating this sub-
unit by dendrochronology to between 1776 and 1898 AD
(Piana and Orquera, 1996). Sub-unit B335 was visible
during the excavation as a dark sediment layer (which
included shell fragments, ash, as well as shell and charcoal
dust) lying approximately in the centre of the hut and
surrounded by shell-midden sub-units (Orquera, 1996).
A total of 10 random samples were analysed (Table 1 and
Fig. 3). The sediment was dry sieved with a 0.5 mm sieve to
remove all shell fragments of larger dimension. Phytoliths
were then extracted using the Madella et al. (1998) protocol
with an added step (the samples were calcinated at 500 1C
for 1 h before starting the process) to remove the high
quantity of organic matter, in the form of animal fat, that
Table 1
List of samples from Túnel VII site that have been analysed
Sample Location Sub-location
TVII 1 II–III 2 NW
TVII 2 III 6 NW
TVII 3 II–III 3 SE
TVII 4 II 2 SW
TVII 5 II–III 1 SW
TVII 6 II 1 SE
TVII 7 II 3 SW
TVII 8 II–III 1 NW
TVII 9 II 3 SE
TVII 10 II–III 2 NE
All samples are from the same layer, which is composed by a dark, humic
sediment very rich in organic matter, with presence of small (ca. 1 cm on
average) fragments of marine shell and coarse sand.
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Fig. 3. Distribution of the samples chosen from sub-unit B355. The excavation was carried out on the basis of two trenches (II and III) that were separated
by a witness (II–III), which was excavated later. The small squares represent the grid and the circles the samples analysed in this study. The dark grey line
shows the limits of the hut and the light grey line the limits of the hearth. The arrow points to the geographical north.

Table 2
Table with the weights of the samples in the different steps of the procedure and the number of phytoliths counted

Sample Location Original sample weight AIF AIF weight on slide Phytoliths counted Phytoliths/g AIF

TVII 1 II–III B355 s.2 NW 4.4774 0.0860 0.0007 15 21.428

TVII 2 III B355 s.6 NW 4.4290 0.0189 0.0008 25 31.250
TVII 3 II–III B355 s.3 SE 4.3908 0.0083 0.0010 14 14.000
TVII 4 II B355 s.2 SW 4.1860 0.0112 0.0009 19 21.111
TVII 5 II–III B355 s.1 SW 4.3102 0.0087 0.0007 30 42.857
TVII 6 II B355 s.1 SE 4.1438 0.0063 0.0007 127 181.429
TVII 7 II B355 s.3 SW 4.5144 0.0374 0.0012 703 585.833
TVII 8 II–III B355 s.1 NW 4.3181 0.0141 0.0012 199 165.833
TVII 9 II B355 s.2 SE 4.1433 0.0110 0.0002 21 105.000
TVII 10 II B355 s.3 SE 4.4703 0.0134 0.0014 94 67.143

imbibed the deposit and that created an over-reaction when
in contact with hydrogen peroxide. The acid-insoluble
fraction (AIF—the residue left after sediment acid treat-
ment that eliminates carbonates and all other acid-soluble
minerals) was calculated according to Albert et al. (1999).
The phytolith residues were mounted in StyroliteTM and
observed with an Olympus BX-50 microscope at 400  and
1000  magnifications. All phytoliths in each slide were
counted and their frequency per gram of AIF was
calculated (Table 2). The Túnel VII deposits are very
recent (XVIII–XIX century) and pedogenesis was not very
advanced.
3.2. Reference collection
Reference collections play an important role for the
identification of phytoliths. Several collections from many
parts of the world are available (e.g., Ball, 2002; Piperno,
2006; Tsartsidou et al., 2007). For this research, a small,
preliminary set was made from the most common taxa of
the Beagle Channel area with the intention of recognizing
the morphological (qualitative) variability of phytoliths in
these plants. This collection is by no means exhaustive.
However, the flora of Tierra del Fuego is composed of few
major taxa that tend to be rather repetitive in the landscape
(Heusser, 1989; Markgraf, 1993; Romanyà et al., 2005).
The reference collection (Table 3) made for the present
work comprises the most common taxa of the area (both
herbs and wooden plants) including the plants that,
according to the ethnographic and anthracological records,
might have had an economic role in the Yamana society
(Gusinde, 1937; Piqué, 1999) (see Fig. 5). This collection,
which represents at least 50% of the autochthonous genera,
fulfilled the aims of this preliminary analysis while it was
still being developed, expanding the number of species and
tissues involved as well as the quantitative information.

Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
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The plants were washed in an ultrasound bath with
distilled water and a few drops of dishwashing liquid. The
wash was followed by a rinse in distilled water, and then
the material was dried in an oven at 60 1C. The extraction
of phytoliths from modern material was carried out by dry
ashing (Pearsall, 2000) and a treatment with a 10% HCl
solution (to eliminate carbonates and oxalates) and H2O2
to eliminate any possible organic matter. Finally, the opal
silica residue was rinsed in distilled water 3 times,
dehydrated with ethanol, and mounted in StyroliteTM.
4. Results
Phytoliths were extracted from all Túnel VII samples.
All show a very fresh, undamaged look (Tables 2 and 4).
However, the concentration of phytoliths per gram of AIF
is not very high and varies considerably between samples,
from only 14.000 phytoliths/g of AIF in sample TVII 3 to
585.833 phytoliths/g of AIF in sample TVII 7. The
phytolith assemblages are fairly repetitive, with only a
few morphologies identified, together with a significant
proportion of non-identified (Table 4). In all the samples,
grass phytoliths are the dominant types (short and long
cells), followed, with very variable frequencies, by phyto-
liths from woody taxa (Table 4), with two samples of the
samples related to the hearth (TVII 1 and TVII 9) as well as
sample TVII 2 showing the highest frequency of woody
taxa. Silica skeletons were almost absent, and only one was
recovered in each of the samples TVII 5–TVII 7. A
principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using
the complete phytolith assemblages as listed in Table 4.
The PCA plot (Fig. 4) shows little correspondence between
context (e.g., the hearth) and assemblage composition, with
the possible exception of the samples TVII 1, TVII 7, and
TVII 10.
The reference collection provided a general view of the
diagnostical possibilities of these microfossils in the

Table 3
List of species selected for the reference collection

Species Part

Marsippospermum grandiflorum (L.f.) Hook. f. Stem

Sphagnum sp. Whole plant
Taraxacum gilliesii (syn. T. magellanicum Comm. ex Sch. Stem and
Bip.) leaves
Nothofagus pumilio (Poepp. and Endl.) Krasser Leaves
Drimmys winteri Forst. Leaves
Poa scaberula Hook. f. Culm and
leaves
Blechnum Penna marina (Poir.) Kühn Leaves
Berberis ilicifolia L. f. Leaves
Berberis buxifolia Lam. Wood and
leaves Fig. 4. Results of the PCA performed on the samples from TVII showing
a high heterogeneity of the phytolith composition of the samples.

Table 4
Phytolith assemblages from the Túnel VII samples

Grass cells Herbs Arboreal Indet. Total

Short cells Trichomes Trich. bases Bulliform Long cells Long cell echinates Blechnum type Woody types Tracheids Ind.

a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. % a.n. %

TVII 1 3 19 0 0 1 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 0 0 11 69 16
TVII 2 4 16 0 0 0 0 2 8 4 16 3 12 0 0 2 8 0 0 10 40 25
TVII 3 6 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 1 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 47 15
TVII 4 10 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 20 4 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 10 20
TVII 5 7 23 4 13 0 0 1 3 10 33 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 7 23 30
TVII 6 27 15 9 5 0 0 0 0 25 14 71 39 0 0 2 1 1 1 47 26 182
TVII 7 254 35 117 16 7 1 2 0 194 27 34 5 1 0 7 1 1 0 102 14 719
TVII 8 96 47 3 1 0 0 0 0 41 20 6 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 56 28 203
TVII 9 1 5 1 5 0 0 1 5 9 45 2 10 0 0 2 10 0 0 4 20 20
TVII 10 52 55 5 5 0 0 0 0 13 14 0 0 1 1 2 2 0 0 21 22 94

In the first column (a.n.) are the absolute number values, in the second column (italics) are the percentage values.

Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
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Fig. 5. Image from the reference collection (Blechnum Penna marina
(Poir.) Kühn). Bar is 10 mm.
Fig. 6. Image of a Blechnum Penna marina (Poir.) Kühn phytolith found
in sample TVII 7. Bar is 10 mm.
regional context of study. Most of the phytolith types
extracted so far do not present levels of characteristics to
make them significant at taxonomic level. Schlereids were
found in Nothofagus, jigsaw pieces in Blechnum, and
grasses presented the various typical phytolith morpho-
types. At the present stage, only the typologies encountered
in Blechnum are of taxonomic importance (Figs. 5 and 6).
5. Discussion
Notwithstanding the preliminary stance of the present
work, there are several important points that emerge from
the sediments analysis of the Yamana dwelling. Phytoliths
were well preserved and have been recovered from all the
archaeological samples. The variability of concentration of
phytolith per gram of AIF indicates a highly heterogeneous
input, which is also emphasized by the PCA results (Fig. 4).
This heterogeneity is further supported by the relative
Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
frequencies of phytoliths composing the assemblages. The
input variability should relate to the spatial variability of
the anthropic actions carried out in the dwelling. It is
possible to eliminate most taphonomic processes either
because it can be assumed that their effect was constant in
all the dwelling sediments (e.g., trampling, chemistry,
amount of organic matter, etc.) or because taphonomy
did not act (e.g., diagenesis). Furthermore, it is expected
that in such a small surface (ca. 7 m2) the phytolith
assemblages related to the natural vegetation input, which
was deposited previously to the anthropic presence, would
have had a much more consistent distribution. However,
the phytolith evidence does not show any direct relation-
ship with spatial features that could be intuitively
considered as possible areas of phytolith concentration.
For instance, a high concentration of phytoliths around the
hearth might be expected, but this is clearly not always the
case: different samples from around this structure may or
may not have high concentrations of these microfossils
(Table 2). All the evidence suggests that the anthropic
phytolith input resulted from the different social actions
carried out during the hut occupation but that these actions
were not unequivocally associated with one location only.
This means that the sequence of actions modified previous
inputs and created a blending effect on the final phytolith
assemblages. Furthermore, because of the peculiarity of the
plant assemblage available to Yamana people (low floristic
variability), and as the productive processes involving plant
materials probably do not generate unambiguously diag-
nostic phytolith signatures, there is little chance of an
unambiguous match between social action and phytolith
record. These remarks about the Yamana dwelling makes
clear that a random sub-set of samples from a living space
or an activity area, in general, cannot represent the entire
phytolith variability. To link the observed phytolith data to
social activities, there is a need for extensive and systematic
sampling that can make clear the phytolith signature of the
whole so to be able to deconstruct the single processes that
intervened. From this theoretical standpoint it is also
apparent that a single sample collected from a context
cannot be taken as representative of the whole context and
that the sampling must be planned according to the
working hypotheses.
In the case of the Yamana archaeological sediments, the
low phytolith concentration might be associated with two
major reasons: firstly, the low evapo-transpirantion level of
Fuegian plants due to the sub-Antarctic climate of Tierra
del Fuego (Iturraspe and Schroeder, 1999) and, secondly,
to taxonomic reasons. In the light of this, the amount of
wood phytoliths observed in the samples is even more
remarkable and stresses the importance of wood input,
probably connected to the use of wood as fuel. Fire was a
fundamental constituent of the Yamana life. A fire was
always carried on the canoe when people moved, and a
hearth made up a primary element of the dwelling with the
fire kept alive at all the time (Gusinde, 1937). Phytoliths
from grasses are also common, and at this stage it is
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
D. Zurro et al. / Quaternary International ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]
difficult, on the basis of the available evidence, to
determine the proportion related to the natural vegetation
and the one related to social actions. However, the high
concentration of grass phytolith in some of the samples
from the area close to the entrance (samples TVII 5, TVII
6, and TVII 8) might suggest some kind of use of grasses in
this area of the hut; for instance, for conditioning the floor
to insulate it from the ground humidity, as documented in
the ethnographic sources (Gusinde, 1937).
From the data collected from the reference collection, it
is clear that redundancy and multiplicity, together with low
production, only allow identification of a few of the
Fuegian taxa (e.g., ferns). However, it is possible to
recognize plant parts and tissues that can be of tremendous
importance to understand resource choice, production
processes, and social use of space. Finally, in respect of
an archaeological evaluation of the ethnographic record
for the use of plant resources, the project is at too early a
stage to properly assess this. The reference collection needs
to be expanded to include all the Fuegian species and more
archaeological sites must be investigated for their phytolith
content.
6. Conclusions
The phytolith analysis from a Yamana dwelling in Tierra
del Fuego has clearly shown that it is of paramount
importance in archaeological sediments to construct a
proper sampling strategy that must take into consideration
the research questions and that is capable of clearly
unveiling the phytolith record inherent variability, related
to both natural and social causes. The use of a single
sample for representing a whole archaeological context
should not be considered a standard practice for phytolith
analysis, especially when the studied context was the milieu
of several, and sometimes unrelated, social actions.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the valuable comments of two
anonymous reviewers. This research was carried out within
the framework of the DEVARA project (Determination of
variability causes of the archaeological record in hunter–-
gatherer societies through an ethnoarchaeological example)
funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science (CICYT
BHA2002-04109-C02-02) and developed between 2002
and 2006. Thanks to N. Rúa, from the Laboratory of
Anthropology Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientı́fi-
cas (CADIC), Ushuaia, for help with the plant collection.
The fieldwork was carried out thanks to a joint research
project (Society and ritual of the last hunter–gatherers of
the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina—
2002AR0015) between the Spanish National Research
Council (CSIC) and the Scientific and Technological
Argentina National Commission (CONICET). The
authors are members of the AGREL Excellence Research
Group (2005SGR00829) of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Please cite this article as: Zurro, D., et al., Variability of the phytolith record in fisher–hunter–gatherer sites: An example from the Yamana society
(Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Quaternary International (2007), doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2007.11.007
7
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