Dietary patterns in human populations from northwest Patagonia during Holocene: an approach using Binford’s frames of reference and Bayesian isotope mixing models

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to assess the variation in the proportional contribution of diverse resources to the diet of human populations from northwest Patagonia (Argentina) throughout the Middle-Late Holocene. Particularly, we assessed the variation among three geographic areas and two periods. We first estimated the expected proportions of terrestrial animals and plants and aquatic resources for each area according to the Binford's frames of references approach. A Bayesian mixing method was then applied to calculate the proportion of plants and animals in the diets from stable isotopes (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) of human bone collagen. The isotope values suggest that the composition of diets differed spatially and temporally. Diets of South Mendoza were mainly composed of terrestrial animals (Rhea-Lama and rodents) with a greater incorporation of C 3 plants towards the later Late Holocene; in North Neuquén, Rhea and Lama represent a proportion of 0.84 of the diet consumed; and finally, the sample of Center Neuquén is the only one with high values of Araucaria in the diet. The isotopic values obtained for the three studied areas did not fit to the expectations of Binford's model, North Neuquén being the area that departs most from the predicted proportions of terrestrial animals and plants and aquatic organisms in the diet. These findings open up new questions about the local conditions that influenced regional variation in the diet of prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

Peopling time, spatial occupation and demography of Late Pleistocene–Holocene human population from Patagonia

“…It is remarkable that the packing threshold of 9.1 individuals/100 km2 was probably over-passed in Patagonia during the Late Holocene. Isotopic and zoo-archaeological evidence show that the Late Holocene is characterized by a process of diversification in the subsistence strategies and diet intensification, including the incorporation of small animals and vegetables in Northwest Patagonia and South Cuyo (Gil et al, 2011;Gord on et al, 2016), the incorporation of a large diversity of aquatic resources along the coast (mollusks, fishes and pinnipeds; Zangrando, 2009;Stoessel and Martínez, 2014) and new labour investment in food processing (Stoessel and Martínez, 2014). Particularly, an increase in the consumption of marine resources is simultaneously found between 7500 and 6000 Cal BP in different areas of the Atlantic coast, such as North of Chubut and Santa Cruz provinces, Río Negro and Tierra del Fuego (G omez Otero, 2006;Zangrando, 2009;Favier Dubois and Scartascini, 2012;Zubimendi et al, 2015).…”

Deconstructing a complex obsidian “source‐scape”: A geoarchaeological and geochemical approach in northwestern Patagonia

“…The Barrancas basin is divided into two segments characterized by different geomorphic regimes. The upper section extends between its source in the Lagunas Fea and Negra (2,500-2,400 masl) and the Laguna Cari Lauquen (1,450 masl), where a rock avalanche that occurred at 2.2 ± 0.6 ka (Costa & González Díaz, 2007) created a natural dam and a large paleolake that lasted until A.D. 1914, when it catastrophically failed due to erosion (González Díaz & Di Tommaso, 2011;Groeber, 1916). Presently, the lagoon covers an area approximately 5 km long, whereas the palaeolake spanned an area nearly 20 km in length (see details below).…”

“…The regional archaeological record indicates the presence of mobile societies with diets predominantly based on the consumption of guanaco (a wild camelid) and wild vegetal foods, such as Prosopis sp. (Gordón, Perez, Hajduk, Lezcano, & Bernal, ; Llano & Barberena, ). Foraging for these food resources in a highly seasonal and rugged landscape gives lithic technology a central role in the organization of mobility, tightly linked to obsidian accessibility, knapping quality, and abundance (Kuhn, ; Torrence, ).…”

“…Foraging for these food resources in a highly seasonal and rugged landscape gives lithic technology a central role in the organization of mobility, tightly linked to obsidian accessibility, knapping quality, and abundance (Kuhn, 2004;Torrence, 2001). 2 | MATERIALS AND METHODS The regional landscape is a complex mosaic where tectonics, volcanism, landslides, fluvial, and glacial processes have interacted to greater and lesser degree through time (González Díaz & Di Tommaso, 2011;Singer et al, 2014). To maximize the representativeness of samples from the diverse geological contexts where obsidian is found, we combine different survey strategies as described below.…”

Inferencias Paleodemográficas en El Noroeste De Patagonia a Partir Del Sitio Aquihuecó, Provincia Del Neuquén, Argentina

“…Hasta el momento se estudiaron aspectos relacionados con la morfología corporal (Béguelin 2017;Cobos y Bernal 2017;Perez et al 2009), la dieta (Gordón et al 2013(Gordón et al , 2018b, la salud bucal (Gordón y Novellino 2017), las técnicas de procesamiento de los alimentos (Lema et al 2012;Rindel 2017) y el ajuar funerario (Della Negra e Ibañez 2012) así como procesos evolutivos y ecológicos a los que estuvieron sujetas estas poblaciones (Gordón et al 2018;. Sin embargo, los aspectos paleodemográficos no se han abordado de manera integrada.…”