Mogollon Strontium Isotopic Baseline

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent studies on domestic turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) and exotic scarlet macaws (Ara macao cyanoptera) have raised new questions about how prehistoric communities in the American Southwest maintained local avian management practices, developed breeding regimes, and fostered trade networks. While strontium isotopic analysis (87Sr/86Sr) can be used to define local and non-local birds, the lack of localized biogenic strontium baseline studies across the region currently makes pinpointing the origins impractical. Here we present our results from a robust strontium isotope analysis that incorporates tooth enamel and bone from over 115 small mammals recovered from thirty archaeological sites in the Mogollon region. Because strontium isotopes from bone and tooth samples can be used as proxies for local geologic signatures, this data set helps characterize strontium variability at each site. Our study defines strontium isotopic baselines for a largely understudied portion of southwest New Mexico and southeastern Arizona and identifies the likely origins of turkeys and macaws. This strontium isotopic baseline study will facilitate ongoing research through much of the Mogollon culture area and lay the foundation for future isotopic studies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40127.0