White-Tailed Deer Antlers as Proxies for Seasonal Climate Variations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The use of oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope analyses of faunal bone samples can provide information reflective of past environmental conditions. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) antlers, although found in many archaeological assemblages, remain underutilized as paleoenvironmental proxies. Here we assess their feasibility to serve as proxies of past seasonality by analyzing both apatite (δ13C, δ18O) and collagen (δ13C, δ15N) phases of four modern white-tailed deer antlers from central Iowa. These samples were then compared with climate data (precipitation, relative humidity, and temperature) from their respective years of death and location. Because antlers develop from early spring to late summer, they may represent a viable proxy for interpreting intra-annual seasonal variations and provide snapshots for climates. Such relationships between sampled antlers and their associated climate would provide a strong argument that the stable isotope values of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen of white-tailed deer antlers can be used to reconstruct paleoclimates. Therefore, this method can help relate behavioral ecology to important past human events. Potential complications with the method include variable rates of antler growth, the ingestion of water from various sources by the deer, and the age of the specimens.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32961