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The Atacama Desert is one of the most inhospitable terrestrial environments on Earth, yet the upwelling of the Humboldt Current off the coast has resulted in the presence of a rich marine biota. It is this marine environment which first enabled the human settlement of the northern Atacama Desert, and continues to form the basis of regional economies today. In this paper we explore how the desert has shaped human dietary choices throughout prehistory, using carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human bone collagen (n=80) to reconstruct the diets of the inhabitants of the Arica region of the northern Atacama. This area is one of the driest parts of the desert, but has been generally understudied in terms of dietary adaptation. Statistical analysis using FRUITS has allowed deconvolution of isotopic signals to create dietary reconstructions and highlight the continued importance of marine resources throughout the archaeological sequence. Location also appears to have played a role in dietary choices, with inland sites having 10-20% less calories from marine foods than coastal sites. We also highlight evidence for the increasing importance of maize consumption, coinciding with contact with highland polities. In all periods apart from the earliest Archaic, however, there is significant variability between individuals in terms of dietary resource use. We conclude that marine resource use, and broad-spectrum economies persisted throughout prehistory. We interpret these results as reflecting a deliberate choice to retain dietary diversity as a buffer against resource instability.

The exact timing, route, and process of the initial peopling of the Americas remains uncertain despite much research. Archaeological evidence indicates the presence of humans as far as southern Chile by 14.6 thousand years ago (ka), shortly after the Pleistocene ice sheets blocking access from eastern Beringia began to retreat. Genetic estimates of the timing and route of entry have been constrained by the lack of suitable calibration points and low genetic diversity of Native Americans. We sequenced 92wholemitochondrial genomes from pre-Columbian South American skeletons dating from 8.6 to 0.5 ka, allowing a detailed, temporally calibrated reconstruction of the peopling of the Americas in a Bayesian coalescent analysis. The data suggest that a small population entered the Americas via a coastal route around 16.0 ka, following previous isolation in eastern Beringia for ∼2.4 to 9 thousand years after separation from eastern Siberian populations. Following a rapid movement throughout the Americas, limited gene flow in South America resulted in a marked phylogeographic structure of populations, which persisted through time. All of the ancient mitochondrial lineages detected in this study were absent from modern data sets, suggesting a high extinction rate. To investigate this further, we applied a novel principal components multiple logistic regression test to Bayesian serial coalescent simulations. The analysis supported a scenario in which European colonization caused a substantial loss of pre-Columbian lineages. ; Fil: Llamas, Bastien. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Fehren Schmitz, Lars. University of California; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Valverde, Guido. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Soubrier, Julien. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Mallick, Swapan. Harvard Medical School; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Rohland, Nadin. Harvard Medical School; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Nordenfelt, Susanne. Harvard Medical School; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Valdiosera, Cristina. La Trobe University; Australia ; Fil: Richards, Stephen M. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Rohrlach, Adam. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Barreto Romero, Maria Inés. Museo de Sitio Huaca Pucllana; Perú ; Fil: Flores Espinoza, Isabel. Museo de Sitio Huaca Pucllana; Perú ; Fil: Tomasto Cagigao, Elsa. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú; Perú ; Fil: Watson Jiménez, Lucía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú; Perú. Centro de Investigaciones Arqueológicas del Museo de Sitio de Ancón; Perú ; Fil: Makowski, Krzysztof. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú; Perú ; Fil: Leboreiro Reyna, Ilán Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Antropologia E Historia, Mexico; México ; Fil: Mansilla Lory, Josefina. Instituto Nacional de Antropologia E Historia, Mexico; México ; Fil: Ballivián Torrez, Julio Alejandro. Unidad de Arqueología y Museos; Bolivia ; Fil: Rivera, Mario A. Universidad de Magallanes; Chile ; Fil: Burger, Richard L. Harvard University; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Ceruti, Maria Constanza. Universidad Católica de Salta; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina ; Fil: Reinhard, Johan. National Geographic Society; Fil: Wells, R. Spencer. University of Texas at Austin; Estados Unidos. National Geographic Society; Fil: Politis, Gustavo Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Paleontológicas del Cuaternario Pampeano; Argentina ; Fil: Santoro Vargas, Calogero Mauricio. Universidad de Tarapacá de Arica; Chile ; Fil: Standen, Vivien G. Universidad de Tarapacá de Arica; Chile ; Fil: Smith, Colin. La Trobe University; Australia ; Fil: Reich, David. Harvard Medical School; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Ho, Simon Y. W. The University Of Sydney; Australia ; Fil: Cooper, Alan. University of Adelaide; Australia ; Fil: Haak, Wolfgang. University of Adelaide; Australia