Archaeological research is radically transforming the view that the Amazon basin and surrounding areas witnessed limited societal development before European contact. Nevertheless, uncertainty remains on the nature of the subsistence systems and the role that aquatic resources, terrestrial mammalian game, and plants had in supporting population growth, geographic dispersal, cultural adaptations and political complexity during the later stages of the pre-Columbian era. This is exacerbated by the general paucity of archaeological human remains enabling individual dietary reconstructions. Here we use stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of bone collagen to reconstruct the diets of human individuals from São Luís Island (Brazilian Amazon coast) dated between ca. 1800 and 1000 cal BP and associated with distinct ceramic traditions. We expanded our analysis to include previously published data from Maracá and Marajó Island, in the eastern Amazon. Quantitative estimates of the caloric contributions from food groups and their relative nutrients using a Bayesian Mixing Model revealed distinct subsistence strategies, consisting predominantly of plants and terrestrial mammals and variably complemented with aquatic resources. This study offers novel quantitative information on the extent distinct food categories of polyculture agroforestry systems fulfilled the caloric and protein requirements of Late Holocene pre-Columbian populations in the Amazon basin.

BioArCh Department of Archaeology University of York York YO10 5DD UK

Department of Archaeology Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History 07745 Jena Germany

Department of Prehistory Institute of Environmental Science and Technology Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 08193 Bellaterra Spain

Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Arne Nováka 1 60200 Brno střed Czech Republic

Groningen Institute of Archaeology University of Groningen Poststraat 6 9712 ER Groningen The Netherlands

Instituto Ambiente Humano Av Germano Moreira 457 Castelo Batatais CP 520 São Paulo CEP 14300 218 Brazil

Programa de Pós graduação Em Cultura E Sociedade Programa de Pós graduação Em Desenvolvimento E Meio Ambiente de Ecossistemas Costeiros e Departamento de Oceanografia E Limnologia Universidade Federal Do Maranhão Av dos Portugueses 1966 Bacanga São Luís CEP 65080 805 Brazil

School of Archaeology University of Oxford 1 South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3TG UK

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South American Archaeological Isotopic Database, a regional-scale multi-isotope data compendium for research

Stable isotope data and radiocarbon dates from Brazilian bioarchaeological samples: An extensive compilation