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Teeth osteometry as tool for studying social complexity: Evaluating white-tailed deer hunting sustainability at Nueva Esperanza, Colombia

Publicado en:Quaternary International. 557 121-135 - 2020-08-20 557(), DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2020.08.023

Autores: Castro Mendez, Sergio Andres; Fernanda Martinez-Polanco, Maria; Romano Gomez, Francisco; Lizcano Serna, Leonardo

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© 2020 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA Examining archaeological remains of animals may aid in understanding complex social interactions among pre-Hispanic societies and their access to protein sources. We study the agro-pottery groups that inhabited Sabana de Bogotá in Colombia during the Herrera (400 BC–200 AD), Early Muisca (200 AD–1000 AD) and Late Muisca (1000 AD–1600 AD) periods. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; Zimmerman, 1780) was the most common protein in the diet of these communities. The relative abundance of white-tailed deer remains can be used as an index for the economies of pre-Hispanic societies. This study analyzes changes in prey proportion by age group to evaluate consumption sustainability. An osteometric analysis is used to determine the age of the deer. As entire jaws are infrequent in the archaeological record, this investigation proposes a methodology using measures of the height of the dental pieces that are more likely to be found in archaeological sites. We analyze 512 O. virginianus dental pieces obtained from the Nueva Esperanza site, and we present evidence of the three periods and a reference table that matches the height of each dental piece to the individual's age group. The osteometric analysis reveals that height measurements are a good indicator to establish the age class of each individual, which was assigned to one of four categories: infantile, young, adult, and old adult. The results suggest that deer hunting intensified as the population grew during the Early Muisca period; however, this did not entail resource scarcity.

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