Isotopes (Other Keyword)
1-25 (56 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the late nineteenth century, Harvard Peabody Museum excavations at the Classic Maya site of Copán, Honduras, identified a large deposit of animal bones in structure 10L-36, a platform located in the El Cementerio area of Copán’s Late Classic Palace Complex. Primarily associated with the eighth–ninth-century CE reign of Yax Pahsaj, 10L-36 is thought to...
Approaches to Sample Selection for Strontium Isotope Testing Within Historic Cemetery Contexts: An Illustrative Example from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Project (2017)
Strontium isotope analyses have become a vibrant frontier for historic cemetery research in the United States. Isotopic analyses can make vital contributions to our understanding of the past, particularly in the categories of demographics, temporal refinements, and individual identifications. This analytical method can be understood as a catalyst for research- similar to a catalyst in a chemical reaction. When utilized in combination with multiple lines of evidence, strontium analyses become a...
The archaeology of dogs at the precontact Yup’ik site of Nunalleq, Western Alaska (2017)
Historically and ethnographically dogs have played a prominent role in the lifeways and lifeworlds of many Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples, and are considered to be a vital aspect of adaptation to living in these regions, providing protection, fur and meat, as well as aiding hunting and transportation. Excavations at the precontact site of Nunalleq in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in coastal Western Alaska have uncovered a significant proportion of dog bones amongst the faunal assemblage. The presence...
Asturias Across Time and Space: An Exploration of Medieval and Early Modern Spain using Stable Isotopes (2015)
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 104 individuals from eight sites was used to reconstruct the diets of Medieval and Early Modern (AD 600-1750) individuals from Asturias, Spain. Asturias is a coastal region located in northern Spain that remained one of the last Catholic kingdoms when the Moors ruled Iberia. Asturian society was structured hierarchically and divided into clergy, nobility, and peasant classes. Each socioeconomic group buried their own according to status and wealth....
A Bayesian model sensitivity study of non-static diet-collagen isotope fractionations factors used to assess breastfeeding and weaning practices among fisher-gatherers populations, western Cuba (2017)
Reconstructing paleo-diets from bone-collagen isotope values (carbon and nitrogen) requires proper knowledge of diet-collagen isotopic fractionations (∆d13Cdiet-col, ∆d15Ndiet-col). While these isotopic fractionations vary considerably among previous human paleo-diet reconstructions, some more recent studies have successfully employed "non-static" dietary offsets. New research suggests that non-static diet-collagen isotope fractionations is best when attempting to reconstruct paleo-diets of...
A Bioarchaeological Approach to Ychsma Regional Interactions: Stable Oxygen and Radiogenic Strontium Isotopes and Late Intermediate Period Mobility on the Central Peruvian Coast (2016)
Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence indicates that, for the Inca Empire and the Spanish Viceroyalty, the Rimac and Lurin Valleys on central Peruvian coast served as a key regional hub for religious and administrative activities. The nature of regional interactions prior to Inca imperial influence in this area, however, remains unclear. Well-known historical narratives claim populations from the adjacent Huarochirí highlands defeated coastal Ychsma populations for agricultural land, but...
Caddo Interregional Warfare or Local Burial Practice: Using Strontium Isotopes from Outlying Sites to Assess Origins and Settlement Patterns of a Skull and Mandible Cemetery at the Crenshaw Site (2016)
The 352 individuals from a skull and mandible cemetery at the Crenshaw site (3MI6) in southwest Arkansas have been argued to represent non-Caddo victims of warfare from other regions. Strontium isotopes taken from 80 individuals were processed as part of a NAGPRA grant and have been used to claim they supported evidence of interregional warfare between the Caddo and the Southern Plains. This paper demonstrates that sampling small animal teeth from surrounding sites can be used to test the...
Coastal-Highland Interactions at the End of Moche: Investigating Vertical and Horizontal Archipelagos as Reflected in Pastoral Strategies in the Cañoncillo Region, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Them and Us: Transmission and Cultural Dynamism in the North of Peru between AD 250 and 950: A Vision since the Recent Northern Investigations" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have conducted important work on long-distance interactions during the Middle Horizon of the south-central Andes (Bélisle et al. 2020; Castillo et al. 2012; Jennings 2010). Camelid herding provided a critical means of exchange...
Diet and Dentition on the Black Sea: An examination of dental health and dietary reconstruction at Medieval Mesambria (2017)
Dental health and dietary habits from the Bulgarian town of Mesambria have never been investigated for the medieval period. The town has its roots in Mediterranean culture, however, in the Early Byzantine and Medieval periods in Bulgaria, the Slavic Bulgars were vying for power and territory, and Mesambria became caught between the dying Byzantine Empire and the new Bulgarian state. The Bulgars brought with them a different diet, with a preference for millet, meat, and cheeses over the...
Diet and Mobility in Roman and Byzantine Turkey (2017)
Isotope analyses (C, N, Sr) have been conducted on human skeletal remains (n=150) from the Roman and Byzantine periods (ca. 133 BC – ca. 1453) from the sites of Hierapolis and Ephesos (Turkey) to characterize and compare their diet and mobility. In addition we undertook a large-scale strontium isotope-mapping project in the region, modern plant and snail samples are also used to characterize the local bioavailable strontium values in southwestern Turkey. Hierapolis and Ephesos were both major...
The Distribution and Provenance of Turquoise from Southern New Mexico, USA and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research at Jornada Mogollon Sites in South-Central New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Compared to other regions of the Southwest, little is known about prehispanic turquoise acquisition and exchange in southern New Mexico and adjacent parts of Texas or in Chihuahua, Mexico. Here, we explore the distribution of sites with turquoise in the Tularosa and Hueco Basins as well as in northern Chihuahua. In...
Drivers and Consequences of Past Human Migrations: Life-History Approach for the Southern Andes (WGF - Post PhD Research Grant) (2021)
This resource is an application for the Post PhD Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Migrations are an intrinsic aspect of human societies, past and present. This global character can be used to build a comparative anthropological framework seeking to understand the drivers and consequences of migration. Within this agenda, we seek to comprehend what are the causes and social effects of a rapid migration pulse recorded between AD 1270-1420 in the southern Andes (Uspallata Valley,...
Early Herding Practices in Tanzania Revealed through Strontium Isotope Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "African Archaeology throughout the Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. East African pastoralists today rely on extensive social networks through which livestock are exchanged to maintain herds. The role of such animal exchange networks among ancient pastoralist communities can be revealed through stable isotope analysis. Pastoral Neolithic sites are broadly distributed across southern Kenya and northern Tanzania....
Environmental Reconstruction at La Quemada, Zacateca, Mexico Through Stable Isotope Analysis of Leporid Bones (2015)
Reconstructing the interactions between past environments and the expansion and secession of complex societies plays an important role in our understanding of their social development. Stable isotope analysis of faunal bone is a useful tool in reconstructing past environments and can give insight into the social-environmental dynamics of past civilizations. In this poster we present results from the stable isotope analysis of leporid bones (N=79) excavated from stratified midden deposits in the...
Evaluating Prehistoric Migration in Pacific Coastal Nicaragua through the Analysis of Strontium Isotope Ratios (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Strontium isotopes are increasingly used to infer migration amongst ancient populations. The 87Sr/86Sr ratio in tooth enamel is primarily influenced by the underlying geology of the region where an individual resided during tooth formation in childhood or adolescence. Older geological formations tend to present a higher 87Sr/86Sr ratio, while lower ratios...
Exploring Domestic Food Origins of the Chinese Community At Terrace (42bo547) Through Isotopic Studies (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Transitioning from Commemoration to Analysis on the Transcontinental Railroad in Utah: Papers in Honor and Memory of Judge Michael Wei Kwan" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Analysis of stable isotopes in bone collagen has been widely used to determine diet in humans and other vertebrates. The methods are well established in theory and practice. This exploratory project is focused on pig and cattle bones...
Farming, Warfare, Drought, and Soil Fertility in the Mississippian Central Illinois River Valley: Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopes on Maize Kernels from Five Sites Spanning Two Centuries (2018)
We report on carbon and nitrogen isotope results from a total of 60 maize kernels from five sequentially-occupied sites in the Central Illinois River Valley that span the Mississippian period (AD 1100-1300). The sites span: (1) the onset of and intensification of warfare in the region; and (2) a long period of drought that eventually gave way to wetter conditions during the last 50 years of the sequence. C13 and N15 isotope values from these maize kernels provide independent support for the...
Foamy, Fermented and Fractionated: Does Beer Consumption Create Confusion for Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Humans? (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "FoodCult: Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland, c.1550-1650", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Bioarchaeologists exploit the geographic and climatic variation of oxygen isotopes in rainfall, and their subsequent deposition in the mammalian skeleton via ingested water, as a tool to explore residential mobility and migration. The method rests on the assumption that in most places and through much of the past...
From Scatterplots to Statistics: Identifying the Local Isotope Range in Multivariate Data (2016)
In recent decades, isotopic assays of strontium, lead, and oxygen in biological remains have revolutionized archaeological migration studies by providing direct evidence for the occurrence, timing, and geographic origins of individual residence change. Such research requires the clear identification of ‘local’ isotopic baselines for comparison against assayed individuals, and yet no single method to accomplish this task has emerged as best practice. Some researchers advocate the use of commensal...
Geographical isotopes, migration and the Tlajinga District of Teotihuacan (2016)
The Tlajinga district was a possible southern entrance for visitors to the city of Teotihuacan. It was also a locus of craft specialization, especially of San Martin Orange ceramics in the later periods, yet was a cluster of common status neighborhoods. The Tlajinga 33 compound (33:S3W1) was extensively excavated 30 years ago, and recent excavations in two other compounds located along the southern Street of the Dead by the Tlajinga Teotihuacan Archaeological Project (PATT), have added to our...
Great Hungarian Plain Diet and Mobility through the Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age (2017)
The Great Hungarian Plain (GHP), which occupies part of Hungary and five surrounding countries, was a gateway to population influx and cultural admixture along the Eastern Steppe corridor. The GHP was a hub of cultural change, including a shift in settlement patterns, during the transition between the Neolithic and Copper Age and again during the Bronze and Iron Ages. This research uses stable isotope analyses to examine transformations in the GHP area and how these changes evolved over the...
Holocene seasonality, mobility, and diet at Niah Cave (Sarawak, East Malaysia): new isotope results on rainforest foragers and farmers? (2016)
Assessment of fine-grained proxies to infer paleoclimate and paleoecology in tropical Southeast Asia is hampered by the coarseness of the archaeological record. Advances in technology, however, do permit fresh insights into past rainforest ecologies using isotope ratios from tooth enamel, albeit with very real spatial and temporal limitations. This is especially true for isotopic analysis of incremental growth layers in human tooth enamel. In this paper, oxygen and carbon isotope ratios are...
Human mobility during the Greek Neolithic: A multi-isotope analysis of the burials from Alepotrypa Cave (2016)
This study measures strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotope ratios in human and domesticated animal teeth from Alepotrypa Cave, a cave that was used for both shelter and burial of the dead from the Early to the Final Neolithic period (6000 – 3200 BC) in southern Greece. Previous radiogenic isotope research on archaeological material in Greece indicates that there are significant differences in 87Sr/86Sr ranges in the Aegean due to the complex geology (Nafplioti 2011;...
Human/animal interactions in the Copan Valley from the beginning to the end of the Copan dynasty: Stable Isotope Analysis of the Felids from Altar Q and the Motmot dedicatory offerings (2015)
In fifth century Copan, Honduras, beneath the city’s first dynastic monument a complete puma was offered beside a female human burial. Over three centuries later, under the watchful eye of sixteenth and final ruler of the dynasty Yax Pasaj, a series of sixteen felids (many of them jaguars) were placed in the dedicatory cache of Altar Q, the "stone of the founder." Here we investigate the remains of some of the largest carnivores on the landscape, the jaguar and puma, to analyze human-felid...
Hydrogen Isotopes in Archaeological Bone Collagen: Potential Combined Influence of Meteoric Water and Protein Intake (2018)
Hydrogen isotopes in archaeological bone collagen (i.e. δ2H-collagen) are poorly understood, but can potentially facilitate new understanding of the complex relationship between trophic level (i.e. animal protein consumption) and meteoric water controls on hydrogen isotopes in omnivorous humans. These concurrent influences on human δ2H-collagen values were examined in 11 North American archaeological sites. The δ2H-collagen values were compared to bone hydroxyapatite oxygen isotopes (i.e....