19 research outputs found
‘To the land or to the sea' : diet and mobility in early medieval Frisia
This study investigated palaeodiet and population mobility in early medieval Frisia through the stable isotope analysis of individuals buried in the fifth–eighth century AD cemetery of Oosterbeintum, a terp site on the northern coast of the Netherlands. The results cast new light on the role of the northern Netherlands in trade and migration in the early medieval period, and have significance for the study of interaction and movement throughout the wider North Sea region. Bone collagen and tooth enamel from humans and animals were analyzed using carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium isotopes. δ13C and δ15N results indicated that the population had a terrestrial, C3-based diet. High δ15N values were observed in humans and fauna, which are probably related to the terp's salt-marsh location. The δ18O and 87Sr/86Sr data revealed a high proportion of non-locals buried at Oosterbeintum, some of whom had probably migrated from regions as distant and varied as Scandinavia and southern England. It is suggested that this immigration may be associated with Frisian maritime trading activities. New data are also presented from a small number of contemporaneous European sites
Palaeo-ecological and archaeological analysis of two Dutch Celtic fields (Zeijen-Noordse Veld and Wekerom-Lunteren): solving the puzzle of local Celtic field bank formation
Baselines for δ
This paper describes an experiment to providebaselines for the δ15N values of prehistoriccereals.Emmer wheat and barley were grown in tubs filledwith two different substrates andplaced in a cage to protect them from birds andcats. The experiment lasted three years.Values obtained in this way may serve in caseswhere no experimental farms of long standingwith unmanured fields can provide them. The resultsare in line with the values obtained atsuch farms, as well as withvalues presented for ethnographic cases in the literature..</p