Late Holocene Pastoralism and Environmental Change in the Puna Highlands of South America: Stable Isotope Analysis of Camelids Bones and Teeth

CELESTE SAMEC; HUGO YACOBACCIO; PATRICK ROBERTS

Conferencia; Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting; 2021

Society for American Archaeology

The goal of this work is to study llama herding in the Puna Highlands of Atacama during the final period of the Late Holocene (700 years BP to present day), focusing on the link between mobility and climate change. South American camelids are the only large mammals that were domesticated in the Americas and llamas have been an important resource for Andean societies as a source ofmeat, fiber, and transportation. In the Puna Highlands, transhumant camelid pastoralism developed ~4000 years BP and remains an important economic activity today. In this work, we will present stable isotope compositions of modern and archaeological llama bones and teeth (δ13C and δ15N values measured on bone collagen, as well as δ13C and δ18O values measured on tooth enamel).The information obtained from the stable isotope analysis of modern llama tissues with known movements and diets will be used as a reference for the interpretation of the stable isotope composition of the llama specimens recovered at the archaeological site of Cueva Chayal. Overall, the combination of bulk bone collagen analysis and teeth enamel sequential analysis will provide valuable information to understand how the diet and mobility of domesticated camelids varied from a diachronic perspective.