The Development and Application of Isoscapes for Archaeological Provenance Studies in the Neotropics: Recent Developments and Future Directions

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Isotope studies have become a common and effective method for inferring the geographic origins of a wide range of materials in various research disciplines, including archaeology. In recent years, such isotope approaches have also become more rigorous and quantitative, and increasingly make use of isoscapes (isotope landscapes) = maps of spatial isotopic variation. This paper provides an overview of the development and use of isotope-based geographic assignment approaches in the archaeology of the New World Tropics. I critically review a wide range of issues involved with the application of such approaches to this area of the world including: the selection of regionally appropriate proxies, the conversion of isotope datasets into isoscapes, spatial modelling, multi-source mixing, missing data, interval versus probabilistic approaches, and integrating multiple isotope data. I conclude with a brief reflection on the recent advances, continuing challenges, and future directions of isotope provenance studies in the Neotropics.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37956.0