Paleodieta y movilidad: análisis isotópicos en restos óseos de la cueva de La Sepultura (3050-2850 a. p.) Sierra de Naola Tula, Tamaulipas

Abstract

It is important to know the process of domestication, dispersal and use of corn, as well as other cultivable plants, as well as geographic mobility. Isotopic analyzes on collagen and bioapatite provide the possibility of contrasting diets with similar isotopic signatures, providing a reliable statistical basis for individual and population differentiation on specific protein sources of plant and animal, terrestrial or marine origin. The isotopic analysis of carbon (13C) in collagen and bioapatite of 20 samples obtained from human bone and teeth from the Cueva de la Sepultura 3050-2850 BC. P. (1400-1100 BC) indicates a wide and rich dietary variety, the product not only of a certain restricted mobility, but also of movements in an environment of ecological transition between the mountains and the coast, as evidenced by the analysis of oxygen isotopes (18O), which provides new data to the historical-cultural and conceptual problem about the increase in the use of corn and other cultivable plants during the development and interaction of hunter-gatherer-fishermen groups and low intensity farmers between the northern Altiplano , the Sierra Madre Oriental and the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico in the Mesoamerican Formative.