Human Diet and Residential Mobility in the Central Western Argentina Colony: Stable Isotopes ( 13 C, 15 N, 18 O) Trends
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Human Diet and Residential Mobility in the Central Western Argentina Colony: Stable Isotopes (13C, 15N, 18O) Trends in Archaeological Bone Samples Horacio Chiavazza & Daniela Mansegosa & Adolfo Gil
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Change or continuity of the human diet after the Spanish settlement in America is a topic mostly addressed in historical written documents with little use of the archaeological record and bioarchaeological or culture material. To counteract this weakness, this paper presents a study of the diet in individuals living in central-western Argentina between the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The paper, focusing on historical bioarchaeology using stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O) from bone samples of human skeletal remains found in Mendoza, Argentina. The aim is to reconstruct the human diet and its residential mobility. Our results show little inclusion of maize in these populations’ diets, significantly less than those for the same region during pre-Hispanic times. The data do not indicate a historic continuity in dietary practices between pre-Hispanic and post Hispanic human population. Keywords Colony . Central Western Argentina . Stable isotopes . Human diet . Residential mobility
H. Chiavazza (*) : A. Gil Faculta de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Parque General San Martín, Campus Universitario, s/n; CIRSF, Ciudad de Mendoza, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] A. Gil e-mail: [email protected] D. Mansegosa CONICET, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Parque General San Martín, Campus Universitario, s/n; CIRSF, Ciudad de Mendoza, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] A. Gil CONICET-IANIGLA, Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael, Parque Mariano Moreno, San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina
Int J Histor Archaeol
Introduction Cultural change, collapse, and the establishment of new organization systems have been distinctive processes originated by the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. Most of the knowledge about this time period is based on written documents. Today, many archaeological studies complement this information from different regions of Latin America. The central- western region of Argentina (Fig. 1) is an interesting case study because it provides a unique example on the establishment of colonial cities in a region where small-scale groups of farmers and hunter-gatherers coexisted (Bárcena 2001; Gambier 2000). Within this framework, several research programs in central-western Argentina have attempted to develop a better understanding of how the Spanish settlement affected the previous local population. Recently, these studies have debated the ethnic structure, diet, and subsistence patterns during the historic time (after 1561 CE) (Bárcena 2001; Chiavazza 1999, 2001, 2010, 2013; Chiavazza and Mafferra 2007; Durán and García 1989; García 1999, 2011; García Llorca 2004; Lagiglia 1976; García Llorca and Cahiza 2007; Michieli 1998; Parisii 1991–92). Central points in this discussi
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