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This paper presents the carbon (13C/12C), nitrogen (15N/14N), oxygen (18O/16O), hydrogen (2H/1H) and sulfur (34S/32S) stable isotope values measured in the hair of a female individual from north‐western Argentina. The analysis of segments of this tissue allows for the recording of the diet and migratory changes with a short time resolution. The sample is from a mummified young female individual discovered in Chuscha mount, Salta province. It was found at more than 5000 masl, in a mountain sanctuary of the Inca expansion (capacochas). The paper discusses the paleodiet and mobility patterns of this individual in the period before her death, focusing on the isotopic variations in a limited time scale. The results indicate that the individual moved from a different region to the place where she was sacrificed. Furthermore, in the last year the individual was alive, a shift in the isotopic composition of the food consumed is detected: a variation in the importance of C4 over C3 resources is evident. The results are compared with the isotopic estimations for other children and young people recovered in archaeological contexts associated with capacochas to infer variability in the geographical trajectories covered during their last months of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This study investigates two key variables-residential context and subsistence-among sacrificial victims dating to the Late Horizon (A.D. 1450-1532) in the Huaca de los Sacrificios at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex in north coastal Peru. We investigate whether aspects of sacrifice in this distant coastal province mirrored that found in Inca heartland contexts such as the capacocha, or remained more typical of coastal sacrificial traditions. Stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope values were characterized in bone carbonate, bone collagen, and hair keratin to estimate geographic residence during the decade before death and diet in the decade, versus months, before death. Bone δ18Ocarbonate values have a mean (±SD) of 26.8 ± 1.1%, bone δ13Ccarbonate values −6.7 ± 1.7%, and bone δ13Ccollagen values 11.8 ± 1.3%; bone δ15Ncollagen values have a mean of 11.5 ± 1.3%. Combined hair δ13Ckeratin values have a mean of −12.8 ± 1.6%, and hair δ15Nkeratin values 10.8 ± 1.3%. In contrast to contemporaneous coastal and highland contexts, we are unable to identify immigrants among the sacrificed individuals or changes in diet that indicate provisioning with a standardized diet leading up to death. Instead, results suggest that victims were local to the area, but consumed moderately variable diets consistent with local subsistence patterns. These findings suggest a distinct pattern of human sacrifice in the Late Horizon and underscore the regional and temporal variation in sacrificial practices in the central Andes. Am J Phys Anthropol 151:22-37, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]