On the Use of Biomineral Oxygen Isotope Data to Identify Human Migrants in the Archaeological Record: Intra-Sample Variation, Statistical Methods and Geographical Considerations.

Oxygen isotope analysis of archaeological skeletal remains is an increasingly popular tool to study past human migrations. It is based on the assumption that human body chemistry preserves the δ18O of precipitation in such a way as to be a useful technique for identifying migrants and, potentially, their homelands. In this study, the first such global survey, we draw on published human tooth enamel and bone bioapatite data to explore the validity of using oxygen isotope analyses to identify migrants in the archaeological record. We use human δ18O results to show that there are large variations in human oxygen isotope values within a population sample. This may relate to physiological factors influencing the preservation of the primary isotope signal, or due to human activities (such as brewing, boiling, stewing, differential access to water sources and so on) causing variation in ingested water and food isotope values. We compare the number of outliers identified using various statistical methods. We determine that the most appropriate method for identifying migrants is dependent on the data but is likely to be the IQR or median absolute deviation from the median under most archaeological circumstances. Finally, through a spatial assessment of the dataset, we show that the degree of overlap in human isotope values from different locations across Europe is such that identifying individuals' homelands on the basis of oxygen isotope analysis alone is not possible for the regions analysed to date. Oxygen isotope analysis is a valid method for identifying first-generation migrants from an archaeological site when used appropriately, however it is difficult to identify migrants using statistical methods for a sample size of less than c. 25 individuals. In the absence of local previous analyses, each sample should be treated as an individual dataset and statistical techniques can be used to identify migrants, but in most cases pinpointing a specific homeland should not be attempted

Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopic Signatures of Hair, Nail, and Breath from tropical African Human Populations

RATIONALE: Stable isotopic analyses are increasingly used to study the diets of past and present human populations. Yet, the carbon and nitrogen isotopic data of modern human diets collected so far are biased towards Europe and North America. Here, we address this gap by reporting on the dietary isotopic signatures of six tropical African communities: El Molo, Turkana (Kerio), Luhya (Webuye), Luhya (Port Victoria), and Luo (Port Victoria) from Kenya, and Baka from Cameroon; representing four subsistence strategies: fishing, pastoralism, agriculturalism, and hunter-gatherer. METHODS: We used EA-CF-IRMS to measure the carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios of hair (n = 134) and nail (n = 80), and the carbon isotopic ratios of breath (n = 184) from these communities, as well as the carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios of some food samples from the Kenyan communities. RESULTS: We expand on the known range of δ13 C values in human hair through the hunter-gatherer Baka, with a diet based on C3 plants, and through the agriculturalist Luhya (Webuye), with a diet based on C4 plants. In addition, we found that the consumption of fish from East African lakes is difficult to detect isotopically due to the combined effects of high nitrogen isotopic ratios of plants and the low nitrogen isotopic ratios of fish. Finally, we found that some of the communities studied are markedly changing their diets through increasing sedentism and urbanization. CONCLUSION: Our findings contribute substantially to the understanding of the environmental, demographic and economic dynamics that affect the dietary landscape of different tropical populations of Africa. These results highlight the importance of studying a broader sample of human populations and their diet, with a focus on their precise context - both from an isotopic and more general anthropological perspectives.This study was funded by a European Research Council Advanced Award to MML (In-Africa Project, ERC 295907), and carried out with permission from the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation, Kenya, No. NACOSTI/P/15/2669/4758

Osteobiography: the history of the body as real bottom-line history

What is osteobiography good for? The last generation of archaeologists fought to overcome the traditional assumption that archaeology is merely ancillary to history, a substitute to be used when written sources are defective; it is now widely acknowledged that material histories and textual histories tell equally valid and complementary stories about the past. Yet the traditional assumption hangs on implicitly in biography: osteobiography is used to fill the gaps in the textual record rather than as a primary source in its own right. In this paper, we compare the textual biographies and material biographies of two 13th-century townsfolk from medieval England – Robert Curteis, attested in legal records, and “Feature 958”, excavated archaeologically and studied osteobiographically. As the former shows, textual biographies of ordinary people mostly reveal a few traces of financial or legal transactions. Interpreting these traces in fact implicitly presumes a history of the body. Osteobiography reveals a different kind of history, the history of the body as a locus of appearance and social identity, work, health and experience. For all but a few textually rich individuals, osteobiography provides a fuller and more human biography. Moreover, textual visibility is deeply biased by class and gender; osteobiography offers particular promise for Marxist and feminist understandings of the past.Wellcome Trus

Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Migratory Behavior of Ungulates Using Isotopic Analysis of Tooth Enamel and Its Effects on Forager Mobility.

Zooarchaeological and paleoecological investigations have traditionally been unable to reconstruct the ethology of herd animals, which likely had a significant influence on the mobility and subsistence strategies of prehistoric humans. In this paper, we reconstruct the migratory behavior of red deer (Cervus elaphus) and caprids at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in the northeastern Adriatic region using stable oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel. The data show a significant change in δ18O values from the Pleistocene into the Holocene, as well as isotopic variation between taxa, the case study sites, and through time. We then discuss the implications of seasonal faunal availability as determining factors in human mobility patterns

Isotopic analysis of faunal material from South Uist, Western Isles, Scotland

This paper reports on the results from stable isotope analysis of faunal bone collagen from a number of Iron Age and later sites on the island of South Uist, in the Western Isles, Scotland. This preliminary investigation into the isotopic signatures of the fauna is part of a larger project to model the interaction between humans, animals, and the broader environment in the Western Isles. The results demonstrate that the island fauna data fall within the range of expected results for the UK, with the terrestrial herbivorous diets of cattle and sheep confi rmed. The isotopic composition for pigs suggests that some of these animals had an omnivorous diet, whilst a single red deer value might be suggestive of the consumption of marine foods, such as by grazing on seaweed. However, further analysis is needed in order to verify this anomalous isotopic ratio

Isotope data from amino acids indicate Darwin's ground sloth was not an herbivore.

Fossil sloths are regarded as obligate herbivores for reasons including peculiarities of their craniodental morphology and that all living sloths feed exclusively on plants. We challenge this view based on isotopic analyses of nitrogen of specific amino acids, which show that Darwin's ground sloth Mylodon darwinii was an opportunistic omnivore. This direct evidence of omnivory in an ancient sloth requires reevaluation of the ecological structure of South American Cenozoic mammalian communities, as sloths represented a major component of these ecosystems across the past 34 Myr. Furthermore, by analyzing modern mammals with known diets, we provide a basis for reliable interpretation of nitrogen isotopes of amino acids of fossils. We argue that a widely used equation to determine trophic position is unnecessary, and that the relative isotopic values of the amino acids glutamate and phenylalanine alone permit reliable reconstructions of trophic positions of extant and extinct mammals

Genetic history of Cambridgeshire before and after the Black Death.

The extent of the devastation of the Black Death pandemic (1346-1353) on European populations is known from documentary sources and its bacterial source illuminated by studies of ancient pathogen DNA. What has remained less understood is the effect of the pandemic on human mobility and genetic diversity at the local scale. Here, we report 275 ancient genomes, including 109 with coverage >0.1×, from later medieval and postmedieval Cambridgeshire of individuals buried before and after the Black Death. Consistent with the function of the institutions, we found a lack of close relatives among the friars and the inmates of the hospital in contrast to their abundance in general urban and rural parish communities. While we detect long-term shifts in local genetic ancestry in Cambridgeshire, we find no evidence of major changes in genetic ancestry nor higher differentiation of immune loci between cohorts living before and after the Black Death

Pathways to the medieval hospital : Collective osteobiographies of poverty and charity

Medieval hospitals were founded to provide charity, but poverty and infirmity were broad and socially determined categories and little is known about the residents of these institutions and the pathways that led them there. Combining skeletal, isotopic and genetic data, the authors weave a collective biography of individuals buried at the Hospital of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge. By starting with the physical remains, rather than historical expectations, they demonstrate the varied life courses of those who were ultimately buried in the hospital's cemetery, illustrating the diverse faces of medieval poverty and institutional notions of charity. The findings highlight the value of collective osteobiography when reconstructing the social landscapes of the past