Ediciones Universidad de Magallanes

The video presentation of Dominique Legoupil‘s book is now online.
Entre Patagonia y Tierra del Fuego: los nomadas del mar del islote Offing” is the fourth monograph published by the French archaeological mission on the maritime sites of Patagonia in 40 years. After the late site of Punta Baja (17th century), the ancient site of Bahía Colorada dating back nearly 6 millennia and the early intermediate site of Ponsonby, Offing is a marine nomad camp from the late intermediate period (4700 – 2400 cal BP) located on a small islet in the centre of the Strait of Magellan. Its study by around twenty European and South American researchers (including several from our team) has highlighted the seasonal cycle of certain occupations, as well as certain economic specialities of the groups who came here first to hunt pinnipeds and otters and then, later, albatrosses and fish. Observation of their lithic and bone equipment has enabled us to measure their exceptional technical abilities and the extent of their network of interconnections with very distant maritime groups and, more sporadically, with land hunters from Tierra del Fuego. These findings may one day provide a better understanding of the mobility and exploitation systems of the so-called ‘canoeros’ of Patagonia, and enable us to reconstruct a spatial and seasonal cycle that has yet to be discovered.