The Sacred Shells Speak: Sclerochronology and Oxygen Stable Isotopes in S. crassiquama (princeps)

Summary

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

This project broadly examines shell ring growth patterns in the Pacific bivalve S. crassisquama (princeps). Spondylus shells were incorporated into pre-Columbian Inca (and greater Andean) ceremonial and ritualistic practices consistently until Spanish colonization. Existing paleoecological and archaeomalacology approaches have relied on oxygen isotopic geochemistry to ascertain small-scale environmental conditions recorded in annual calcium carbonate growth ring patterns. These isotopic signatures have been compiled to form sclerochronologies for certain long-living mollusk species. This project seeks to situate this shell ring approach in the Andes, and to apply oxygen isotopic geochemistry and sclerochronology-building to the Andean S. crassisquama (which occupies coastal Ecuador and Peru).

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): 24663