Scale of Human Mobility in northwestern Patagonia: An Approach Based on Regional Geology and Strontium Isotopes in Human Remains

FERNÁNDEZ, MARÍA VICTORIA; GORDÓN, FLORENCIA; LE ROUX, PETRUS; WINOCUR, DIEGO; GUSTAVO LUCERO; BENÍTEZ, ANAHÍ; RINDEL, DIEGO; DELLA NEGRA, C.; BERNAL, VALERIA; BARBERENA, R.

GEOARCHAEOLOGY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2021

0883-6353

Strontium isotopes allow studying human paleogeography and have widened the scope ofarchaeological enquiries on mobility. We present an approach based on strontium isotopes(87Sr/86Sr) to study the mobility of hunter-gatherer societies from northwestern Patagonia(Neuquén, Argentina). The analysis is developed on the basis of a macro-regionalgeological framework that guides sampling and interpretation of results. We also presentresults for fauna to begin building a landscape of bioavailable strontium to be utilized in theinterpretation of results from human samples. These first results conform to generalexpectations and show the most radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr values for the oldest geologicalprovinces, while low values are recorded for recent substrates. Additionally, we provideresults for human samples from archaeological sites spanning the last 4000 years, a periodduring which a number of important socio-demographic changes occurred. The results inhuman samples indicate overall isotopic fidelity to the values recorded in the local geology,suggesting a relatively restricted spatial scale of mobility during the late Holocene. Thisdiscussion is situated in a biogeographic research framework assessing topographicvariation and landscape seasonality, and contributes to understand the movements ofpeople, flow of material objects, and circulation of information in the Patagonian Andes.