A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources

Autores
Serna, Alejandro; Salazar García, Domingo C.; Valenzuela, Luciano O.; Prates, Luciano Raúl
Año de publicación
2020
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
artículo
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
Central-eastern North Patagonia is characterized by a severe environmental fragmentation due to the scarce and heterogeneous distribution of fresh water. The main local wet zones, the Negro and Colorado river valleys in the North and the Somuncura Foothills in the South are separated by a large and harsh dry land, the travesia. In this paper, we assess the effects of this environmental fragmentation in the mobility of the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers through the analysis of the stable isotopes of oxygen in both enamel and water sources. We analyzed the δ18O of the enamel carbonate of 64 human teeth from 42 individuals from the Negro River valley (n = 30) and the Somuncura Foothills (n = 12) and transformed them into drinking water values (δ18Odw) to be compared with an oxygen water baseline built from the most important surface water sources of the area. Our results show variable mobility, but they also highlight two trends regarding the direction of the movement. First, people buried at the Negro River valley seem to have consumed more regularly water from the Colorado River in the North than from other water sources located farther south (e.g. Somuncura Foothills). Second, the δ18Odw values from the Somuncura sample show east-to-west prevalent mobility along the foothills, far from the northern water sources (e.g. Colorado River). This weak connectivity between the northern and the southern parts of the study area (Negro and Colorado river valleys and Somuncura Foothills) is probably related to the harsh environmental constraints imposed by the travesia. Our isotopic results in conjunction with the available archaeological and ethnohistorical data indicate that this large dry land acted as a marginal space in terms of human exploitation and that it certainly influenced human mobility.
Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo
Materia
Ciencias Naturales
Paleomobility
Stable oxygen isotopes
Hunter-gatherers
Patagonia
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/127994

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network_name_str SEDICI (UNLP)
spelling A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sourcesSerna, AlejandroSalazar García, Domingo C.Valenzuela, Luciano O.Prates, Luciano RaúlCiencias NaturalesPaleomobilityStable oxygen isotopesHunter-gatherersPatagoniaCentral-eastern North Patagonia is characterized by a severe environmental fragmentation due to the scarce and heterogeneous distribution of fresh water. The main local wet zones, the Negro and Colorado river valleys in the North and the Somuncura Foothills in the South are separated by a large and harsh dry land, the travesia. In this paper, we assess the effects of this environmental fragmentation in the mobility of the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers through the analysis of the stable isotopes of oxygen in both enamel and water sources. We analyzed the δ18O of the enamel carbonate of 64 human teeth from 42 individuals from the Negro River valley (n = 30) and the Somuncura Foothills (n = 12) and transformed them into drinking water values (δ18Odw) to be compared with an oxygen water baseline built from the most important surface water sources of the area. Our results show variable mobility, but they also highlight two trends regarding the direction of the movement. First, people buried at the Negro River valley seem to have consumed more regularly water from the Colorado River in the North than from other water sources located farther south (e.g. Somuncura Foothills). Second, the δ18Odw values from the Somuncura sample show east-to-west prevalent mobility along the foothills, far from the northern water sources (e.g. Colorado River). This weak connectivity between the northern and the southern parts of the study area (Negro and Colorado river valleys and Somuncura Foothills) is probably related to the harsh environmental constraints imposed by the travesia. Our isotopic results in conjunction with the available archaeological and ethnohistorical data indicate that this large dry land acted as a marginal space in terms of human exploitation and that it certainly influenced human mobility.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo2020info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionArticulohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501info:ar-repo/semantics/articuloapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/127994enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/2352-409Xinfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102484info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-09-03T11:03:04Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/127994Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-09-03 11:03:04.483SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
title A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
spellingShingle A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
Serna, Alejandro
Ciencias Naturales
Paleomobility
Stable oxygen isotopes
Hunter-gatherers
Patagonia
title_short A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
title_full A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
title_fullStr A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
title_full_unstemmed A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
title_sort A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Serna, Alejandro
Salazar García, Domingo C.
Valenzuela, Luciano O.
Prates, Luciano Raúl
author Serna, Alejandro
author_facet Serna, Alejandro
Salazar García, Domingo C.
Valenzuela, Luciano O.
Prates, Luciano Raúl
author_role author
author2 Salazar García, Domingo C.
Valenzuela, Luciano O.
Prates, Luciano Raúl
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Ciencias Naturales
Paleomobility
Stable oxygen isotopes
Hunter-gatherers
Patagonia
topic Ciencias Naturales
Paleomobility
Stable oxygen isotopes
Hunter-gatherers
Patagonia
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Central-eastern North Patagonia is characterized by a severe environmental fragmentation due to the scarce and heterogeneous distribution of fresh water. The main local wet zones, the Negro and Colorado river valleys in the North and the Somuncura Foothills in the South are separated by a large and harsh dry land, the travesia. In this paper, we assess the effects of this environmental fragmentation in the mobility of the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers through the analysis of the stable isotopes of oxygen in both enamel and water sources. We analyzed the δ18O of the enamel carbonate of 64 human teeth from 42 individuals from the Negro River valley (n = 30) and the Somuncura Foothills (n = 12) and transformed them into drinking water values (δ18Odw) to be compared with an oxygen water baseline built from the most important surface water sources of the area. Our results show variable mobility, but they also highlight two trends regarding the direction of the movement. First, people buried at the Negro River valley seem to have consumed more regularly water from the Colorado River in the North than from other water sources located farther south (e.g. Somuncura Foothills). Second, the δ18Odw values from the Somuncura sample show east-to-west prevalent mobility along the foothills, far from the northern water sources (e.g. Colorado River). This weak connectivity between the northern and the southern parts of the study area (Negro and Colorado river valleys and Somuncura Foothills) is probably related to the harsh environmental constraints imposed by the travesia. Our isotopic results in conjunction with the available archaeological and ethnohistorical data indicate that this large dry land acted as a marginal space in terms of human exploitation and that it certainly influenced human mobility.
Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo
description Central-eastern North Patagonia is characterized by a severe environmental fragmentation due to the scarce and heterogeneous distribution of fresh water. The main local wet zones, the Negro and Colorado river valleys in the North and the Somuncura Foothills in the South are separated by a large and harsh dry land, the travesia. In this paper, we assess the effects of this environmental fragmentation in the mobility of the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers through the analysis of the stable isotopes of oxygen in both enamel and water sources. We analyzed the δ18O of the enamel carbonate of 64 human teeth from 42 individuals from the Negro River valley (n = 30) and the Somuncura Foothills (n = 12) and transformed them into drinking water values (δ18Odw) to be compared with an oxygen water baseline built from the most important surface water sources of the area. Our results show variable mobility, but they also highlight two trends regarding the direction of the movement. First, people buried at the Negro River valley seem to have consumed more regularly water from the Colorado River in the North than from other water sources located farther south (e.g. Somuncura Foothills). Second, the δ18Odw values from the Somuncura sample show east-to-west prevalent mobility along the foothills, far from the northern water sources (e.g. Colorado River). This weak connectivity between the northern and the southern parts of the study area (Negro and Colorado river valleys and Somuncura Foothills) is probably related to the harsh environmental constraints imposed by the travesia. Our isotopic results in conjunction with the available archaeological and ethnohistorical data indicate that this large dry land acted as a marginal space in terms of human exploitation and that it certainly influenced human mobility.
publishDate 2020
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2020
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info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102484
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