Settlement and mobility strategies among hunter-gatherer-fisher communities from the Southern region of the Fuegian Atlantic Coast

Abstract

This article focuses on the study of the social space management strategies of hunter-gatherer-fishers within the Fuegian Atlantic coast. This theme has been tackled from three different perspectives: the analysis of the relationship between environmental features and settlement intensity, the proximity of these places to certain necessary resources, and the study of neighbourly relationships between these communities. To study these three aspects, we used analytical tools from the domain of quantitative archaeology, including exploratory and spatial statistical methods. Data-mining, analysis and visualisation were combined within a Geographical Information System from where our results were interpreted. By these means, we addressed several questions, such as which environmental variables and resources affected settlement choices and with which intensity and what was the influence of other non-environmental related factors on habitat patterns.