The Use of Strontium Isotope Analysis to Investigate Tiwanaku Migration and Mortuary Ritual in Bolivia and Peru

Abstract

Strontium isotope analysis is applied in South America for the first time in order to investigate residential mobility and mortuary ritual from ad 500 to 1000. While Tiwanaku‐style artefacts are spread throughout Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile during this time, the nature of Tiwanaku influence in the region is much debated. Human skeletal remains from the site of Tiwanaku and the proposed Tiwanaku colony of Chen Chen have been analysed to test the hypothesis that Tiwanaku colonies, populated with inhabitants from Tiwanaku, existed in Peru. Strontium isotope analysis supports this hypothesis by demonstrating that non‐local individuals are present at both sites.

Pottery production, regional exchange, and state collapse during the Middle Horizon (A.D.500–1000): LA-ICP-MS analyses of Tiwanaku pottery in the Moquegua Valley, Peru

“…2) in Moquegua (Goldstein 1985(Goldstein , 1989b(Goldstein , 1993a(Goldstein , 1993b(Goldstein , 2005. Strontium isotope analyses of teeth as well as analyses of non-metric cranial and dental traits support the claim that the Moquegua Valley was colonized by immigrants from the altiplano (Blom 1999;Knudson et al 2004;Sutter 2000;Sutter and Sharratt 2010).…”

“…The large cemeteries may have included as many as 13,000 individuals (Owen 1997). The mortuary population was biologically related to populations in the Tiwanaku heartland and included immigrants from the altiplano (Blom 1999;Knudson et al 2004;Sutter and Sharratt 2010). In life, the inhabitants of Chen Chen mirrored altiplano heartland daily and ritual practices, constructing and using public and private spaces as well as material culture very similar to that found in the Titicaca Basin.…”

“…As Tiwanaku ideology spread, communities in the immediate hinterland were incorporated into the state (Albarracin-Jordan 1996;Albarracin-Jordan and Mathews 1990;Bandy 2001;Bermann 1994Bermann , 1997Janusek and Kolata 2003;Stanish 2002Stanish , 2003Stanish et al 2005). Over time, incorporation spread across the south central Andes as migrants from the Tiwanaku heartland founded distant colonies in agriculturally productive regions (Anderson 2013;Blom et al 1998;Goldstein 1989bGoldstein , 1993aGoldstein , 1993bGoldstein , 2005Knudson et al 2004;Torres-Rouff 2008) (FIG. 1).…”

Bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in different environmental samples — Effects of anthropogenic contamination and implications for isoscapes in past migration studies

“…In archeology, the Sr isotopic composition can be used to identify migrants and to examine movements of individuals (Bentley et al, , 2003Knudson et al, 2004Knudson et al, , 2005Kusaka et al, 2011;Montgomery et al, 2007;Müller et al, 2003;Price et al, 2000Price et al, , 2006aPrice et al, , 2006bSchweissing and Grupe, 2003;Tafuri et al, 2006;Tung and Knudson, 2008;Wright, 2005). Such information, in turn, provides insight into the dynamics and economy of past populations.…”

Análisis De La Peleodieta a Partir De Los Isópos Estables Del Carbono Y Del Nitrógeno en La Población Prehispánica De La Puna De Jujuy (Argentina)

“…Algunos usos de los isótopos del nitrógeno son: distinguir los distintos niveles tróficos (Minagawa y Wada 1984;Schoeninger y DeNiro 1984;Heaton et al 1986;Ambrose 1991), detección de recursos de agua dulce (Katzenberg y Weber 1999;Katzenberg 2008), como indicador de estrés hídrico (Sealy et al 1987;Ambrose 1991;DeNiro 1987), como indicador de estrés proteínico (Katzenberg y Lovell 1999;White y Armelagos 1997), y también se pueden utilizar para hacer inferencias sobre la alimentación infantil y el destete (Fogel et al 1989;Katzenberg 1999). Los isótopos de oxígeno y de estroncio se utilizan en estudios de residencia y migración (Schwarcz y Schoeninger 1991;Sealy et al 1991;White et al 1998;Knudson et al 2004).…”