Deer, Drought, and Warfare: An Isotopic Investigation of Hunting Strategies from the Eleventh through the Fourteenth Centuries in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study explores the relationship between garden hunting and food security in the Central Illinois River Valley, an area plagued by endemic warfare and drought during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Located ~100 km north of Cahokia, the largest precolumbian polity in North America, the CIRV was composed of smaller settlements that lacked a regionally consolidated political hierarchy. In the twelfth century, the CIRV witnessed the establishment of palisaded villages and an increase in regional warfare. This presentation examines whether increased regional warfare constrained the deer hunting strategies of residents of the CIRV to agricultural fields adjacent to villages through the comparison of δ13Capatite, δ13Ccollagen, and δ13Ncollagen. Stable isotopes from bone collagen (δ13Ccollagen and δ13Ncollagen) combined with bone apatite (δ13Capatite) reflect the whole diet (carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins), thus providing a powerful measure of the dietary significance of maize in the diet of white-tailed deer. With an increase of these combined measures of protein and carbohydrates indicative of increased maize consumption by deer, the integration of bone collagen and apatite will provide additional insights in the reconstruction of garden hunting practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35820.0