Human paleodiet studies between ca. 3300–1500 years BP in Quebrada de Los Corrales (Tucumán, Argentina)

SRUR, GABRIELA; OLISZEWSKI, NURIT; OLIVERA, DANIEL E.; KILLIAN GALVÁN, V. A.; MARTÍNEZ, JORGE G.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

Elsevier

Año: 2020 vol. 32

2352-409X

In Quebrada de Los Corrales, located in northwestern Argentina, a local economic transitional process took placebetween ca. 3800 and 2000 BP, during which groups of hunter-gatherers incorporated agriculture and pastoralism.In this paper, we characterize the human diet in the period between 3300 and 1500 years BP using stablecarbon isotope analysis on collagen and apatite as well as nitrogen. The application of a Bayesian mixing modelallowed us to establish the dominant consumption of game meat and C3 plants. These results are the first obtainedfor the area and form an independent line of evidence for the process of socioeconomic change fromsocieties of nomadic hunters towards societies of agro-pastoral villages. Thus, even when the number of individualsanalyzed is low, they are archaeologically relevant as they represented the only pre-Hispanic funerarycontexts detected in the study area so far.