Intra-individual variation in carbon and nitrogen isotope composition from bone and dentin collagen from a modern wild camelid in the Dry Puna of Argentina

SAMEC, CELESTE; ARZAMENDIA, YANINA; BALDO JORGE. L.; PANARELLO, HECTOR; YACOBACCIO, HUGO

Mendoza

Conferencia; 12da Conferencia Internacional ICAZ.; 2014

International Council for Archeozoologia

The isotopic composition of tissues formed at different times and with different turnover rates can be used to address dietary and physiological variation in animal populations, especially when studying aspects such as diet seasonality, movement and weaning in wild animals from modern and archaeological contexts. Isotopic values of bone reflect diet during the whole animals life since its collagen is constantly but slowly remodeled. In contrast, isotopic values of tooth dentin reflect diet during the early years of an animal s life since its collagen does not remodel after formation. Previous studies in mammal species have shown higher dentin collagen delta 13C and delta 15N values when compared to bone collagen ones, although in some cases delta 13C dentin collagen values are lower than bone collagen ones. The 15N enrichment in dentin collagen relative to bone collagen is known to be a product of suckling, which can lead to higher delta 15N values in teeth formed before weaning. The application of intra-individual isotopic analysis to the study of archaeological scenarios and past ecosystems requires a modern reference data set. For this reason, we conducted a preliminary study of the variation in delta 13C and delta 15N values measured on bone and dentin collagen from a wild camelid species (V. vicugna) of the Dry Puna of Argentina. This work represents the first step towards sequential sampling of camelid teeth in order to tackle diet seasonality and movement patterns of camelid herds in the past.