Small artifacts and miniatures are reduced objects that can be connected to rituals, children’s activities, and small game. Material correlates can be established for the aforementioned hypotheses. In the southern end of the La Plata basin, small artifacts were recovered from different late Holocene hunter-gatherer archaeological sites, but their functional explanation is not clear. The aim of this paper is to discuss the presence of small artifacts in the regional record from the regular morphological groups of harpoon heads, atlatl hooks, lithic spheroids, and labrets. Firstly, we statistically evaluate the metrical structure of the complete sample to identify small size outliers. Secondly, we analyze the physical, morphological, and functional structure of the small artifacts to discuss if they are different from the regular sample in other properties rather than only the size. The results show that a reduced number of artifacts qualify as different from the regular sample, although variability among morphological groups is noticed in the raw material and use-wear patterns. In the case of harpoons and atlatl hooks, variable behaviors are recorded where children’s use is a possibility, but raw material mediated strategies and recycling of tools cannot be discarded. Labrets were intended for small people; and a lithic spheroid could have been made by a novice. Although no conclusive statement can be made because of the multiple nature of the archaeological record, our interpretations constitute a first approximation to the presence of children in the hunter-gatherer societies under study, which must be confronted through new studies and samples.

小工艺品和微缩模型是可以与仪式、儿童活动和小游戏联系起来的简化物体。可以为上述假设建立材料相关性。在拉普拉塔盆地的南端，从不同的全新世晚期狩猎采集考古遗址中发现了小型文物，但它们的功能解释尚不清楚。本文的目的是讨论区域记录中鱼叉头、atlatl 钩、石质球体和 Labrets 等常规形态群中小型文物的存在。首先，我们统计评估整个样本的度量结构，以识别小尺寸异常值。其次，我们分析小文物的物理、形态和功能结构，讨论它们是否在其他属性上与常规样本不同，而不仅仅是尺寸。结果表明，尽管在原材料和使用磨损模式中注意到形态组之间存在差异，但与常规样本不同的文物数量有所减少。就鱼叉和atlatl钩而言，在儿童可能使用的情况下记录了不同的行为，但不能放弃以原材料为媒介的策略和工具的回收。Labrets 是为小个子设计的。一个新手就可以制作出一个石质球体。尽管由于考古记录的多重性，无法做出结论性的陈述，但我们的解释构成了所研究的狩猎采集社会中儿童存在的初步近似，必须通过新的研究和样本来面对。