Inter-group guanaco varibility in Southern Patagonia: carbon stable isotopes analyses and its implications for zooarchaeological studies

TESSONE AUGUSTO, RINDEL DIEGO, BELARDI JUAN, PANARELLO HECTOR AND GOÑI RAFAEL.

París

Congreso; 11th International Conference of ICAZ; 2010

International Council for Archaeozoology

The aim of this work is to study the isotopic variability of guanaco family groups and discuss the implications of these results for the analysis of zooarchaeological contexts; assessing the degree of variability in ?Ô13C values from five groups of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) from Lake Cardiel, Santa Cruz province, Patagonia Argentina. The assemblages are the result of a winter mortality event (Belardi and Rindel 2008). It were sampled 71 individuals representing the different groups; also incorporating, in order to compare, 10 samples from another group from a southern area, plus another 20 individuals collected, unclustered, at different places in the north and central-west Santa Cruz. Collagen of bone remains were collected by conventional techniques (Tykot 2004), and obtained the 13C/12C ratio by mass spectrometry. It is expected that this type of analysis could generate criteria to study the different hunting strategies ¡V e.g. single vs. communal- used by hunter-gatherer populations who inhabited southern Patagonia during the Holocene. This line of evidence has already been used in other animal species in archaeological contexts to study different isotopic signatures to elucidate human hunting behavior (Hope 2004, Fenner 2008).