Alberto Garcia-Piquer

Maritime mobility strategies are a focal point of the discussion on Hunter-Gatherer coastal and insular adaptations. Yet we know little about how people moved across the Seascape-Landscape complex during most of human history, and even in modern times. The rugged coastlines of Southernmost Patagonia, an impressive labyrinth of 80,000 km coastline, provide a unique setting for the study of maritime Hunter-Gatherer adaptative and resilient strategies. This study takes place in the inland sea of Ultima Esperanza (Magallanes region, Chile), a maritime-terrestrial mixed environment of great anthropological interest. Despite being a semi-closed area, in modern times was a crossroads, connecting northern and southern archipelagos with the Patagonian plains by portage routes. The ethnographic record highlights the role played in mobility strategies by these land passages, across which canoes could be transported. Archaeological fieldwork will be carried out at four locations covering a variety of coastal and insular micro-environments, including different portage routes. Then, archaeological, environmental and topographic data will be modeled and analyzed by spatial and computational methods. The project will offer new insights into maritime settlement patterns and mobility strategies and how it changed over time; portage routes material and social implications; and maritime-terrestrial social interaction in Southernmost Patagonia.