Abstract:
The southern boundary of prehispanic farming in South America occurs in central Mendoza Province, Argentina at approximately 34 degrees south latitude. Archaeological evidence of farming includes the recovery of macrobotanical remains of cultigens and isotopic chemistry of human bone. Since the 1990s, archaeologists have also hypothesized that the llama (Lama glama), a domesticated South American camelid, was also herded near the southern boundary of prehispanic farming. The remains of a wild congeneric camelid, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), however, are common in archaeological sites throughout Mendoza Province. It is difficult to distinguish bones of the domestic llama from wild guanaco in terms of osteological morphology, and therefore, claims that llama were in geographic areas where guanaco were also present based on osteometric analysis alone remain equivocal. A recent study, for example, claimed that twenty-five percent of the camelid remains from the high elevation Andes site of Laguna del Diamante S4 were identified based on osteometric evidence as domestic llama, but guanaco are also a likely candidate since the two species overlap in size. We test the hypothesis that domesticated camelids occurred in prehispanic, southern Mendoza through analysis of ancient DNA. We generated whole mitochondrial genome datasets from 41 samples from southern Mendoza late Holocene archaeological sites, located between 450 and 3400 meters above sea level (masl). All camelid samples from those sites were identified as guanaco; thus, we have no evidence to support the hypothesis that the domestic llama occurred in prehispanic southern Mendoza.
摘要:
南美前西班牙裔农业的南部边界发生在门多萨省中部,阿根廷位于南纬约34度。农业的考古学证据包括恢复食肉的大型植物遗骸和人体骨骼的同位素化学。自1990年代以来,考古学家还假设美洲驼(Lamaglama),驯化的南美骆驼,也在西班牙前农业的南部边界附近放牧。野生同种骆驼的遗骸,瓜纳科(Lamaguanicoe),然而,在门多萨省的考古遗址中很常见。从骨学形态上很难区分国产美洲驼和野生胍科的骨骼,因此,声称美洲驼在仅基于骨测量分析也存在的地理区域仍然模棱两可。最近的一项研究,例如,声称,根据骨骼测量证据,来自LagunadelDiamanteS4的高海拔安第斯山脉遗址的骆驼残骸中有25%被鉴定为国内美洲驼,但是由于这两个物种的大小重叠,因此guanaco也可能是候选物种。我们检验了驯化的骆驼发生在西班牙前的假设,通过对古代DNA的分析,门多萨南部。我们从南部门多萨全新世晚期考古遗址的41个样本中生成了整个线粒体基因组数据集,位于海拔450至3400米之间(masl)。来自这些地点的所有骆驼样本都被鉴定为guanaco;因此,我们没有证据支持这样的假设,即国内美洲驼发生在西班牙前南部门多萨。