Strontium Isotopes and Human Migration at the Archaeological Site of Marcajirca, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The archaeological site of Marcajirca, located in the Puccha River Valley, atop a steep ridge at 3800 masl, provides an interesting context in which to examine changes in human mobility patterns through time on both a regional and local scale. Extensive radiocarbon dating of both archaeological and human skeletal material place occupation of the site between AD 1040 and 1640. This time range allows us to address questions surrounding temporal changes in human mobility and population dynamics during the Late Intermediate Period and Inca occupation. This region, between the Andean plateau and the Amazonian rainforest, is characterized by diverse geological formations of differing ages, which makes the application of 87Sr/86Sr ideal to trace patterns of movement over long and short distances. Here we present new 87Sr/86Sr data measured from 58 individuals buried at Marcajirca. In addition, this study provides the first in-depth examination of baseline 87Sr/86Sr geological values for the region by analyzing a combination of modern plant (n=18) and faunal (n=22) samples to generate an expected local and non-local range of bio-available strontium ratios.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25362