Can I See the Menu, Please? Isotopic Baselines and Human Diet in the Andes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Carbon and nitrogen isotope values of plants reflect the environmental conditions under which they grew. Isotopic variation caused by environmental variation is often passed on to consumers, including humans, such that each region and time period has its own isotopic signature and variability. Isotopic paleodietary analysis in the central Andes often relies on archaeological baselines from other regions and time periods or on modern foods. This is especially the case for the coastal resources of the Central Andes. Creating unique baselines for specific sites and time periods is ideal, but often challenging. This research presents a complete food source carbon and nitrogen isotope baseline for the archaeological site of Cerro de Oro in the Cañete Valley, Peru. This baseline includes δ13C and δ15N measurements of all the different food sources found at the site (e.g., plants, marine animals, camelids, and guinea pigs). This isotopic baseline allows us to understand the life history of an inhabitant of the site whose bone, hair, nail, and teeth have also been subjected to isotopic analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36857.0