Carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of natural pastures in the dry Puna of Argentina: a baseline for the study of prehistoric herd management strategies

SAMEC, CELESTE;YACOBACCIO, HUGO D.: PANARELLO

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

Springer Link

Lugar: Heidelberg; Año: 2017 vol. 9 p. 153 - 163

1866-9557

This study represents an isotopic survey of modernplants developed to establish baseline isotopic values in order toexplore prehistoric herd management strategies employed bythe South American camelid herders that occupied the southernAndean highlands during the past 3000 years. We present carbon(δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic compositions of naturalpastures collected from different plant communities alongan altitudinal gradient in the dry Puna of Argentina. Ourresults show that C3 plants are the most abundant along thewhole altitudinal gradient and that C3 and C4 plants exhibit adifferential distribution, the latter being less abundant in thosesites located above 3900meters above sea level (masl). At thesame time, plants growing at low-altitude sites with low wateravailability exhibit higher δ15N values than plants growing athigh-altitude sites with higher water availability. These resultsexplain the negative correlation found between altitude andSouth American camelid bone collagen δ13C and δ15N valuespublished in previous studies. This work represents a fundamentalstep towards the building of an isotopic ecology for thedry Puna area with the ultimate goal to explore herd managementstrategies employed by human groups in the past. In thissense, modern plant and South American camelid tissue isotopic compositions would provide a frame of reference tointerpret isotopic compositions measured on archaeofaunalremains recovered at pastoral sites, with the aim to exploremobility and pastureland use by prehistoric herders.