Reconstructing Childhood Diet in the Aftermath of Wari Imperial Decline: Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis of Human Dentition from Huari-Monqachayoq-Solano, Peru

Summary

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

Stable isotope analysis can illuminate aspects about a population’s diet and migration patterns otherwise unavailable through skeletal analysis. The population for this study is a mass burial at the site of Huari-Mongachayoq, excavated by Francisco Solano in the 1980s. The skeletons date to the second half of the Andean Late Intermediate Period, ca. 1275 – 1430 CE, approximately two centuries after the political decline of the Wari Empire. This time was also characterized by a long-term drought, which may have affected agricultural production, thus affecting the diets of these post-Wari individuals. Our study uses stable carbon isotope analysis of human dentition to explore how specific aspects of childhood diet changed, if at all, from Wari to post-Wari times. Furthermore, because dental enamel forms during childhood, we can investigate whether juvenile males and females consumed distinct diets, an insight that can shed light on gender norms and gender roles in post-Wari society. We also explore how isotope values differ between those with cranial modification and those without. Forty-eight enamel samples from this population will be compared to previously published data from the same site, which showed δ13C values ranging from -7.9‰ to -2.3‰, and the mean δ13C = -4.7‰ (s.d.=1.5).

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): 25036