Diet and Health in the Zacapu Basin: A Geochemical Approach to the Bioarchaeology of the Tarascan State

这个博士后奖学金研究项目旨在了解生物文化人类适应扎卡普高原湖泊环境的人口不断增长的背景下。确定扎卡普盆地人类生存的考古证据有限，无法明确这些人口是否从事密集的玉米农业。虽然有大量的考古证据表明对水生资源（两栖动物、蛤、鱼、水禽等）的大量开发，玉米在饮食中的作用仍不清楚。考虑到玉米在当时整个中美洲的营养和象征价值，玉米不成为扎卡普盆地饮食的重要组成部分是不可思议的。扎卡普盆地提供了一个机会，以检查该地区的人口可能使用的适应性战略，以获得食物，从不太理想的环境，以及这些战略在塔拉斯坎国家的形成中发挥的作用。该项目有三个目标：（1）评估洛马斯各地点一段时间内的玉米消费水平，（2）评价饮食的营养充足程度，（3）确定每个地点内较小时间尺度上的饮食变化。来自骨胶原的稳定碳和氮同位素将用于确定饮食中玉米的相对比例。将使用骨骼和牙齿营养压力和疾病指标来评估人口的营养和健康状况，并将使用氟化物测年技术来完善初次和二次埋葬以及混合遗骸的相对年表

This Postdoctoral fellowship research project seeks to understand biocultural human adaptation to the Zacapu highland lake environment in the context of a growing population. The limited archaeological evidence for the determination of human subsistence in the Zacapu Basin does not make it clear whether or not these populations practiced intensive maize agriculture. While there is abundant archaeological evidence for an intense exploitation of aquatic resources (amphibians, clams, fish, waterfowl etc.), the role of maize in the diet remains unclear. Given the nutritional and symbolic value of maize throughout Mesoamerica at the time, it is inconceivable that maize was not an important component of the diet in the Zacapu Basin. The Zacapu Basin presents an opportunity to examine the adaptive strategies that human populations in the region may have used to obtain food from less-than-optimal environments, and the role that these strategies played in the formation of the Tarascan State. This project has three objectives: 1) to assess the levels of maize consumption at the Lomas sites through time, 2) to evaluate the nutritional adequacy of the diet, and 3) to determine dietary shifts on a smaller time-scale within each site. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes from bone collagen will be used to determine relative proportions of maize in the diet. Skeletal and dental indicators of nutritional stress and disease will be used to assess the nutritional and health status of the population, and fluoride dating techniques will be used to refine the relative chronologies of primary and secondary burials as well as commingled remain