Parental Investment in a High-Stress Environment: Weaning Age and Early Childhood Diet at Uraca, Lower Majes Valley, Peru

Summary

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

Human behavioral ecology predicts that individuals alter reproductive strategies to maximize reproductive success in response to environmental and social conditions. We employ stable isotope measures (δ15N and δ13C) of weaning age and early childhood diet from serial micro-samples of first molar dentin from 10 individuals as proxies for the reproductive strategies employed by individuals interred at the site of Uraca, in the Lower Majes Valley of Arequipa, Peru during the Early Intermediate Period (EIP) to Middle Horizon (ca. AD 200 – 750). This era in southern Peru is marked by regional shifts in trade relationships, settlement patterns, and subsistence practices that reflect the impact of intense flood-drought cycles during the EIP and the transition to Wari imperial rule during the Middle Horizon. Bioarchaeological evidence shows Uraca was a status-differentiated cemetery of locally-born people, plagued by high levels of interpersonal violence. Given that injured men from the elite sector consumed more C4-enriched diets as children, we hypothesize that the early lived experience of Uraca children, measured through weaning age and diet, will exhibit status and gender distinctions. These data on differential parental investment provide one avenue for understanding how the population responded to shifting environmental and social conditions.

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): 24837