20225403(en)/3 - Spheres of Mobility, Kinship Systems, and Isotopes: A Comparative Exploration for Northern Mendoza (Argentina)

Ramiro Barberena, Augusto Tessone, Paula Novellino, Erik J. Marsh, Valeria Cortegoso, Alejandra Gasco, Daniela Guevara y Víctor A. Durán

Mobility is a key issue in the archaeology of southern South America, providing a lens through which multiple aspects of past social and economic organization can be visualized. Beyond this focus, there are multiple sources of behavioral variation that have little archaeological visibility and are thus seldom considered. However, the global ethnographic record shows that these aspects play a key role which may have also been significative at the archaeological scale. To connect these analytical levels, we explore different dimensions of daily and anomalous–potentially disruptive–human mobility. We develop an ethnography-based model that centers on individual life histories and incorporates aspects of mobility and kinship organization. Building on this, we present a first archaeological evaluation based on strontium isotopes, which allows us to track paleomobility, and stable isotopes, providing insights on paleodiet and niche width. This is applied to two archaeological contexts from northern Mendoza Province (Argentina): Barrancas, located in the eastern lowlands (2000-2300 cal BP) and the Uspallata Valley, between the geological units of the Precordillera and Cordillera Frontal (1200-700 cal years BP). The analysis enables us to evaluate the scale of daily mobility, stability of life histories, existence of different forms of kinship organization, and the incidence of migration.

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