Scale of Human Mobility in northwestern Patagonia: An Approach Based on Geological Variation and Strontium Isotopes in Human Remains

M. VICTORIA FERNÁNDEZ; FLORENCIA GORDÓN; PETRUS LE ROUX; DIEGO WINOCUR; GUSTAVO LUCERO; ANAHÍ BENÍTEZ; DIEGO RINDEL; CLAUDIA DELLA NEGRA; VALERIA BERNAL; RAMIRO BARBERENA

GEOARCHAEOLOGY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2022 vol. 37 p. 227 - 241

0883-6353

Strontium isotopes allow studying human paleogeography and have widened the scope of archaeological enquiries on mobility. We develop a first application of strontium isotopes to study the mobility of mobile societies from northwestern Patagonia (Argentina). The analysis is developed on the basis of a macro-regional geological framework that guides sampling and interpretation of results. We also present results for fauna to begin building a landscape of bioavailable strontium to be utilized in the interpretation of results from human samples. These first results conform to general expectations and show the most radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr values for the oldest geological provinces, while low values are recorded for recent substrates. Additionally, we provide results for human samples from archaeological sites spanning the last 4000 years, a period during which a number of socio-demographic changes would have occurred. The results in human samples indicate overall isotopic fidelity to the values recorded in the local geology, suggesting a relatively restricted spatial scale of mobility during the late Holocene. This discussion is situated in a biogeographic research framework assessing topographic variation and landscape seasonality, and contributes to understand the movements of people, flow of material objects, and circulation of information in the Patagonian Andes.