Ethnohistory and Archaeofauna; life Stories in the southern Border bonaerense at the end of the twentieth Century and early twentieth

Abstract

Personal documents are reference elements where the author or narrator researches into his own memory or others’ experiences. They are generally biased by subjectivity and / or ethnocentrism. They can be professional writers or not, but their works become important documents that allow us to know the past from a different conception, this type of text incorporates various social actors, where writing is a deep exploration of their reality in their community through one’s view of the signer, the undersigned, a real person at that time, by name. It is presented as a case study of the germany Hermann Simonn´s personal diaries who came to our country after having fought as a volunteer soldier in Paraguay. This war protagonist describes his experiences as a small cattle producer in the restive southern end of the nineteenth century and border early twentieth century, during the so-called National Organization.
The contribution of ethnohistory through critical analysis of their detailed accounts, focused on a mode of production and exploitation of sheep and cattle, enables the testing of the data obtained with the archaeofaunal record from fortlets, large farms, hills and taperas. This interdisciplinary way be interpreted lifestyles and habits of production and consumption in the southern Buenos Aires province border.