Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Archaeology Volume 2013, Article ID 128470, 12 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/128470 Research Article Stone Tool Manufacture Strategies and Lithic Raw Material Exploitation in Coastal Patagonia, Argentina: A Multivariate Approach Marcelo Cardillo and Jimena Alberti IMHICIHU-CONICET, 15 Saavedra Street, 5th. Floor, 1083 Buenos Aires, Argentina Correspondence should be addressed to Marcelo Cardillo; marcelo.cardillo@gmail.com Received 4 June 2013; Accepted 28 August 2013 Academic Editor: Ravi Korisettar Copyright © 2013 M. Cardillo and J. Alberti. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. his paper seeks to characterize strategies of artifact manufacture and lithic raw material exploitation along San Mat´ ıas Gulf coast, Argentina, using multifactorial and cluster analysis. Multifactorial analysis is a relatively new method that has yet to be used for archaeological analysis; it has the advantage that it allows us to describe data using diferent groups of qualitative or quantitative variables at the same time. Additionally, cluster analysis was conducted on multifactorial axis in a bid to identify grouping patterns. he results obtained from the combination of these two methods suggest that they may be useful in characterizing technological strategies in the study area. Furthermore, they may also be a powerful exploratory and characterization tool able to generate explanations at low spatial scales. he application of these methods on San Mat´ ıas Gulf study case suggests that along the western and northern coasts of this Gulf the most important variables in determining diferences in resource use were the fragmentation ratio and lithic raw materials used in artifact manufacture. 1. Introduction he coast of R´ ıo Negro province, Argentina, runs for 380 km (Figure 1) with an archaeological record ranging from 6000 years 14 C BP to the recent Late Holocene (450 years 14 C BP) [1]. Focusing on diferent research avenues—artifactual, isotopic, archaeofaunistic, bioarchaeological—it has been possible to determine diferences in the use of the coastal areas, as well as changes in subsistence strategies over time ([1–6], amongst others). In this regard, through the study of lithic assemblages from our study area, we have detected variations in the abundance of diferent stone tool types and debris discard rates. his could be the result of the microenvironmental diversity in the area, of dating issues, and/or due to changes in human diet [3, 7, 8]. In general, although the manufacture of lithic artifacts was mostly expeditive [9], some raw materials such as obsidian, obtained from sources more than 200 km away, would have been exploited in a much more conservative manner [10]. Probably, the procurement of obsidian would have taken place as part of the regional circuits of mobility along the coastline, as well as through contact and exchange between the diferent human groups. Previous studies [3] have shown that a few common tool types dominated the lithic assemblages. Deposits with a greater variety of types were those with the longest chronological occupation and the highest artifactual density [11]. hese places, oten located near to secondary lithic raw material deposits (and other subsistence resources), were characterized by high lake and core discard ratios. In con- trast, low artifact diversity is observed in loci (speciic points in space with concentrations of archaeological materials) with diicult access to resources, or those located further than 1 km away from coastal or clif areas. It seems that these sites were used for more speciic reasons and consequently in a more discontinuous manner [3, 11]. his indicates diferences in land-use intensity, thereby suggesting that some areas were used in a more persistent form than others [3, 11]. he aim of this paper, therefore, is to apply cluster and exploratory multifactorial analyses to the lithic assemblages