hedliCka] stone industries OF THE ARGENTINE COAST 115 



sions shifted, being filled on one side and extended on the other by 

 the changing sands, the native implement-maker moved his work 

 place with them, and it is readily seen that in the course of time 

 much of the surface of the ground underneath the sands would be 

 supplied in tliis way with chips, nuclei, and rejectage, and these in 

 turn would continue to be reexposed as new areas were uncovered by 

 the winds. 



There is nothing to indicate that either the ''black" or the ''white" 

 flaked stones were brought in the worked state, accidentally or 

 otherwise, to the sites where found. The proximity of the principal 

 materials used — the quartzite in the north, the tosca in the south, 

 and the dark pebbles on the adjacent beach — makes it practically 

 certain that all of these materials were worked in the protected 

 depressions among the sand dunes on the very spots where the 

 numerous relics are now found. Had the few finished implements 

 only been encountered on one or more of these playa floors, their 

 presence might be regarded as due to accidental loss by hunters or 

 other rovers of the pampas, but the hundreds of the flaked pebbles, 

 the thousands of chips, and quantities of other forms of rejectage, 

 strewn over practically all of the black and some portions of the 

 gray playas, could not have been brought in and left by wayfarers 

 from a distance. 



The white quartzite, however, was, without question, brought in 

 convenient masses from the low Sierra in the more western part of 

 the province, and worked up at leisure among the medanos. A 

 large nucleus of tliis stone was found by the writer near the Arroyo 

 Corrientes, south of Mar del Plata, and some of smaller size were 

 seen in other localities. It is plain that these are nuclei from which 

 large pieces have been flaked, and thus is furnished clear proof of the 

 importation and local utilization of this material. (Fig. 27.) 



Of course, it is not assumed that all of both the "black" and the 

 "white" stones showing human manipulation have been deposited at 

 the precise level and in the identical spots at which they are found 

 to-day. Some may have sunk from higher levels, as the lighter soil 

 ingredients were removed by the wind and perhaps also by water, 

 and some of the lighter flakes may have been moved directly by these 

 agencies. 



In rare instances only was a worked stone found imbedded in the 

 surface of a playa. A careful search directed particularly to this 

 phase of the subject resulted in the discovery of only five chipped 

 pieces, three "black" and two "white," partly buried. All of these 

 were observed in the black playas, in one of which there was also 

 partly interred (nothing exposed except the teeth) the skull of a 

 modern viscacha. Yet it is readily conceivable that specimens may 



