Isotopic Evidence for Long-Distance Connections of the AD Thirteenth-Century Promontory Caves Occupants
The Promontory caves (Utah) and Franktown Cave (Colorado) contain high-fidelity records of short-term occupations by groups with material culture connections to the Subarctic/Northern Plains. This research uses Promontory and Franktown bison dung, hair, hide, and bone collagen to establish local bas...
Published in: | American Antiquity |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2021
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2020.116 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S000273162000116X |
Summary: | The Promontory caves (Utah) and Franktown Cave (Colorado) contain high-fidelity records of short-term occupations by groups with material culture connections to the Subarctic/Northern Plains. This research uses Promontory and Franktown bison dung, hair, hide, and bone collagen to establish local baseline carbon isotopic variability and identify leather from a distant source. The ankle wrap of one Promontory Cave 1 moccasin had a δ 13 C value that indicates a substantial C 4 component to the animal's diet, unlike the C 3 diets inferred from 171 other Promontory and northern Utah bison samples. We draw on a unique combination of multitissue isotopic analysis, carbon isoscapes, ancient DNA (species and sex identification), tissue turnover rates, archaeological contexts, and bison ecology to show that the high δ 13 C value was not likely a result of local plant consumption, bison mobility, or trade. Instead, the bison hide was likely acquired via long-distance travel to/from an area of abundant C 4 grasses far to the south or east. Expansive landscape knowledge gained through long-distance associations would have allowed Promontory caves inhabitants to make well-informed decisions about directions and routes of movement for a territorial shift, which seems to have occurred in the late thirteenth century. |
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