Human and camelid paleodiets in El Bolsón valley (NW Argentina): A stable isotope approach

Abstract

This exploratory study aims at reconstructing human paleodiets and that of camelids—their staple animal resource—in El Bolsón, an Andean valley in Catamarca Province, NW Argentina, as a way of exploring variations in the strategies and patterns of food procurement, production, preparation, and consumption by local agricultural-pastoralist societies over the last 1500 years. We present the first systematically obtained data on carbon (¹³C/¹²C) and nitrogen (¹⁵N/¹⁴N) isotopic relationships as measured on camelid and human bone collagen. They come from five camelid individuals from Los Viscos archaeological site, dating to the last 1200 years, and from six human individuals from archaeological rescues and isolated finds bracketed between at least ca. 1300 cal CE and ca. 500 cal CE, as no other human samples are available in the study area. The results suggest that camelids consumed predominantly locally available C₃ pastures, while the human paleodiet was primarily based on C₄ plants, with camelid protein not being central to it. Here, we discuss how local productive strategies would have played a part in the selective diet of the human inhabitants and interpret this picture in the context of the larger area comprising the Andean valleys of NW Argentina.