Revisiting Cucuruchu, a Late Pleistocene site on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast with megafauna and lithic association

Abstract

The study of historical documents from the original excavation led by J. M. Cruxent, of museum collections, as well as results of fieldwork, are combined to provide a revised assessment of the archeologically site of Cucuruchu, which together with those of Taima-Taima and Muaco, document megafaunal lithic remains associated from the Late Pleistocene in northern Venezuela. Six vertebrate taxa are reported for Cucuruchu: five megaherbivores (a giant sloth, Eremotherium laurillardi.; a glyptodontid, Glyptotherium cf. G. cylindricum; a macrauchenid, cf. Xenorhinotherium bahiense; a proboscidean, Notiomastodon platensis; and an equid, Equus sp.), and a turtle (Kinosternon sp.). Two fragments of El Jobo projectiles were found in situ lying among megaherbivores bones, while another unidentified projectile fragment was also found in the same layer. Although no direct evidence of human exploitation on these megaherbivores remains has been found, the presence of El Jobo projectiles in the undisturbed fossil-bearing layer some of which are associated with fossil remains, could be a suggestive of such interaction. Two new radiocarbon dates indicate ages of at least ca. 15.3-16.0 kyr cal BP for the fossil-bearing layer, contrasting with the mid to late Holocene age originally reported. Cucuruchu is a window to the past and supports the presence of hunter-gatherers of the El Jobo culture in the region at the end of the Pleistocene.