An investigation into the archaeological application of carbon stable isotope analysis used to establish crop water availability: solutions and ways forward

Carbon stable isotope analysis of charred cereal remains is a relatively new method employed by archaeological scientists to investigate ancient climate and irrigation regimes. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of environmental variables on carbon isotope discrimination (D) in multiple environments to develop the technique and its archaeological application, using crops grown at three experimental stations in Jordan. There are two key results: (1) as expected, there was a strong positive relationship between water availability and D; (2) site, not water input, was the most important factor in determining D. Future work should concentrate on establishing ways of correcting D for the influence of site specific environmental variables and on assessing how well carbon isotope discrimination values are preserved within the archaeological record

People on the move in Roman Britain

Levels of mobility in the Roman Empire have long been assumed to be relatively high, as attested by epigraphy, demography, material culture and, most recently, isotope analysis and the skeletons themselves. Building on recent data from a range of Romano-British sites (Poundbury in Dorset, York, Winchester, Gloucester, Catterick and Scorton), this article explores the significance of the presence of migrants at these sites and the impact they may have had on their host societies. The authors explore the usefulness of diaspora theory, and in particular the concept of imperial and colonial diasporas, to illustrate the complexities of identities in later Roman Britain

A Lady of York : migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain

Modern methods of analysis applied to cemeteries have often been used in our pages to suggest generalities about mobility and diet. But these same techniques applied to a single individual, together with the grave goods and burial rite, can open a special kind of personal window on the past. Here, the authors of a multidisciplinary project use a combination of scientific techniques to illuminate Roman York, and later Roman history in general, with their image of a glamorous mixed-race woman, in touch with Africa, Christianity, Rome and Yorkshire

Isotopes and individuals: diet and mobility among the medieval Bishops of Whithorn

Stable isotopes get personal in this analysis of burials at a medieval cathedral. Compared with the local meat-eating rank and file, those people identified as bishops consumed significantly more fish and were incomers from the east. These results, while not so surprising historically, lend much increased confidence that isotope analysis can successfully read the status and mobility of individuals in a cemetery