Leporid management and specialized food production at Teotihuacan: stable isotope data from cottontail and jackrabbit bone collagen

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• 作者：Andrew D. Somerville ; Nawa Sugiyama…
• 关键词：Teotihuacan ; Stable isotopes ; Zooarchaeology ; Human ecology ; Food systems
• 刊名：Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：9
• 期：1
• 页码：83-97
• 全文大小：
• 刊物主题：Earth Sciences, general; Archaeology; Chemistry/Food Science, general; Geography, general; Life Sciences, general; Anthropology;
• 出版者：Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• ISSN：1866-9565
• 卷排序：9

文摘

Archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Teotihuacan (ad 1–ad 550) in the Basin of Mexico provides evidence for leporid (cottontails and jackrabbits) breeding and/or management within a residential complex of the city, Oztoyahualco. The present study tests this notion by analyzing Teotihuacan leporid bone collagen samples (n = 134) for stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C_collagen) and nitrogen (δ15N_collagen) to provide information on ancient leporid diet and ecology. Results demonstrate that carbon-stable isotope values from Oztoyahualco specimens are significantly higher than those from other contexts at Teotihuacan and from a sample of modern specimens from the region. These data are consistent with the notion that leporids from Oztoyahualco consumed diets high in C₄ and CAM plants, such as the human-cultivated staples of maize (Zea mays), nopal cactus (Opuntia sp.), and maguey (Agave sp.). Nitrogen-stable isotope results show no significant differences between Oztoyahualco and other contexts, suggesting that Oztoyahualco leporids inhabited similar environments, ate food grown on similar soils, and were feeding at the same trophic level. When considered in combination with archaeological data and previously published isotopic results, δ13C_collagen data from Oztoyahualco support the idea that leporids were artificially provisioned by humans, consistent with the hypothesis that they were bred and/or managed through human labor. More broadly, these results hint that food production at Teotihuacan was at least in part conducted by specialized workers in a manner similar to that of commercialized market economy of the later Aztec Empire (ad 1428–1521).