Abstract
Homo sapiens colonized the Americas via the Bering land bridge, likely at the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum. Once arrived in South America, populations moved further south colonizing the Andean region, while others expanded toward and along the Atlantic coast. Some groups adapted to the coastal environment, developing a hunter-gatherer economy dependent on marine resources (‘Coastal Tradition’). Others, towards the interland, adapted to the large variety of natural habitats. Specifically, some groups dwelled in the tropical lowlands and the Brazilian Planalto Highlands (“Itararé-Taquara Archaeological Complex”), others in the Pampas plains (“Vieira Tradition”), and others in the rivers’ wetlands of the Plata basin ("Complex hunter-gatherers of the Lower Paraná wetland"). Their economies, mainly linked to the low residence mobility that induced a high degree of density-dependent human adaptations and an exploitation of the local environment, were highly diversified and included ancillary proto-horticulture. Moreover, social organization were structured in different ways, including small groups of egalitarian hunter-gatherers, societies with incipient horticulture immersed in a process of social complexity, and agricultural societies with social hierarchies and institutionalized inequality, increasing the variability of cultural habits. However, while information about population dynamics is available, the life-styles, life-histories, landscape uses and mobility patterns of these latter groups need to be investigated to understand how hunter-gatherers adapted to the South America habitats. The HABITS project will focus on a space-time frame constrained to southeastern South America during the late Holocene to decrypt the organizational forms and the wide spectrum of human-environment interactions. A multi-methodological interdisciplinary framework, including bio-archaeological, isotopic and proteomic analyses on human (and faunal) skeletal remains together with development of bioavailable isoscape maps, will be developed. Specifically, morphological and morphometric analyses as well as non-metric dental traits will be employed as a proxy for genetic diversity (WP1). Proteins of enamel tissue, combined with strontium, oxygen and carbon isotopes of tooth enamel apatite will be used to decipher the sex of bad-preserved individuals (WP1) as well as key in understanding subsistence, mobility and landscape use of these individuals, but also their territorial sharing and interactions (WP2). High-resolution carbon and nitrogen analyses of incremental dentine samples and the trace elemental profile of tooth enamel will disclose their trophic niche and the time and mode of weaning in the different populations (WP3).
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Eugenio Bortolini
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
Coordinatore:
Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia - UNIMORE(Italy)
Contributo totale di progetto: Euro (EUR) 208.334,00
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 103.120,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
28/09/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
