LATE CHALCOLITHIC POPULATION IN ARSLANTEPE: STABLE ISOTOPE RECONSTRUCTION OF DIET AND SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES

This study presents the isotopic analyses of 19 human and 87 animal (domestic and wild) skeletal remains from the Late Chalcolithic 1-4 levels of the site of Arslantepe (Eastern Anatolia). The oxygen and carbon in bioapatite and carbon and nitrogen in collagen isotopic analyses have been performed they provided multiple information on diet and subsistence strategies during Late Chalcolithic occupation (Arslantepe VIII and VII, 4700-3400 BCE), a period that is characterised by important changes in terms of social organisation, not only at this site but all over Greater Mesopotamia. The aim of this study is to investigate modifications in diet and in subsistence strategies in the crucial phases of increasing social and economic compl exity. This study testifies that human adults, exclusively female, had a diet mostly based on C-3 plants such as barley and emmer and on animals having themselves a C-3 diet. No internal differentiations in diet are visible. In line with this, the isotope values of bones of wild fauna are indicative of a C-3 ecosystem. Human infants were breastfed and are thus placed at a higher trophic level than the adult females. The foetuses, instead, reflect the value of water ingested by mothers. Isotope investigations show potentially more interesting changes in domestic animal behaviour, with Caprinae and Bos in period VIII that appear to be gathered in large herds grazing over a vast area, whilst in the following period VII cattle is bred near the site and in confined areas, as was for pig for both periods, whereas caprine continue to herd in vast areas. These transformations point to a differentiation in herding systems for different animals between periods VIII and VII that may be explained by a growing complexity in herding organisation and patterns unknown before.