A SURFACE WATER δ18O BASELINE FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF SEASONALITY AND MOBILITY IN THE MAJES VALLEY AND PUCUNCHO BASIN OF SOUTHERN PERU
Oxygen isotopes in archaeological human and animal teeth provide a potential means to study past migration. In this thesis I evaluate oxygen isotopes as a way to measure highland site occupation seasonality and human movement between elevation zones in the Central Andes. I focus on two questions: 1) Do surface water δ18O values vary predictably with altitude? and 2) Do surface water δ18O values reliably record the wet and dry season? Using water samples collected from the Majes Valley and Pucuncho Basin of southern Peru, I establish the seasonal and spatial distribution of δ18O. The final dataset represents 98 water samples collected during wet and dry seasons between 2018-2019, from elevations 36 to 4938 meters above sea level. Surface water δ18O and δD values in the study area are consistent with regional and global meteoric waters. Individual water bodies demonstrate relatively higher δ18O values during the dry season and lower δ18O values in the wet season, matching predictions. Lowland and highland surface waters demonstrate overlapping ranges of δ18O, making it impossible to predict the values of surface waters based on elevation alone. Rather, local δ18O appears to reflect evaporative processes influenced by stream order, catchment size, and the geographic position of a waterbody within the watershed. These data suggest oxygen isotopes are not independently suited to resolve questions of human mobility between elevation zones in the western Andes. Further testing is needed to understand the local seasonal and inter-zonal isotopic ecology.
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- In Collections
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Copyright Status
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
- Material Type
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Theses
- Authors
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Milton, Emily Beatrice Peterson
- Thesis Advisors
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Rademaker, Kurt
- Committee Members
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Bocherens, Hervé
Moore, Katherine
O'Gorman, Jodie
Stansell, Nathan
Wrobel, Gabriel
- Date
- 2020
- Subjects
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Archaeology
- Program of Study
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Anthropology - Master of Arts
- Degree Level
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Masters
- Language
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English
- Pages
- 179 pages
- Permalink
- https://doi.org/doi:10.25335/e9ar-r382