Stable isotope insights into endemic animal diets in pre-colonial Jamaica

The role of commensal or synanthropic species in the subsistence practices and island ecologies of the insular Caribbean has been receiving increasing attention as more sites and faunal assemblages are studied across the region. As the only surviving endemic terrestrial mammal on the island and an essential part of the human diet in precolonial Jamaica, the Jamaican hutia ( Geocapromys brownii ) has become a useful proxy for reconstructing human diets, niche construction, and anthropogenic landscape changes. Meanwhile, less-studied rice rats ( Oryzomys antillarum ) can provide useful additional ecological baselines. This study utilizes newly analyzed isotopic data from hutias and rice rats from several sites to reconstruct the ecology of endemic rodents and their role in human subsistence practices. δ 13 C and δ 15 N values from ( n = 25) rodent bone collagen and δ 13 C and δ 18 O from ( n = 15) dental enamel of hutias suggest dietary variation among the sampled taxa across different sites. When compared with previously analyzed human and hutia data from Jamaica, our results highlight commensal feeding relationships between rodents and humans. These results further highlight the possibility of intentional animal management practices among the precolonial population of Jamaica, and the role anthropogenic landscape changes may have played in the ecology of endemic rodents before European colonization. Likewise, the timing of these changes in precolonial Jamaica suggests a greater human-environment relationship than first anticipated, in which humans demonstrated more influence over their environment, specifically the fauna.