Feeding the elite? Southamerican camelid differential feeding analysis through stable isotopes in the first millenium AD (Ambato valley, northwestern Argentina)

IZETA, ANDRES DARIO; LAGUENS, ANDRES G.

París

Conferencia; XI International Conference del International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ); 2010

Museum nationalle de Histoire naturelle

The use of stable isotopes to establish South American camelid paleodiet has been studied in the valleys of northwestern Argentina in the last three years. In a first diachronic approach we established a feeding pattern of animals that differed over time. Also in several areas the remains of camelids association with such palaeodietary indicators allowed to see a differentiation of the feeding of these animals in different times and that may be related to different types of social organization of the region. So it seems to be a correlation between the type of food eaten and the socioeconomic context in which the camelids were found. Specifically in the Ambato Valley, a non egalitarian society developed for the first millennium AD where elite people had differential access to varied goods that included specially breed camelids. This work aims to integrate 21 new results of from Ambato Valley. The new data come from Piedras Blancas (~1000 A.D.). The isotopic values suggest a diet with high content of C4 plants, which in turn was interpreted as a feeding cycle management of these animals. These new data strengthen our model of specialization in the handling of animals associated ultimately the development of non egalitarian societies in Ambato Valley. In order to assess if this was a particular practice of this period and site, results were compared with other sites of the Valley from the same time and with an earlier one (El Altillo, ~0 AD), confirming the previous model.