Dietary variability through isotopic analysis of modern human hair from Nicaragua: exploring significant differences in diet between and among demographic groups in a single population

Summary

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of modern human hair from Nicaragua was used to explore what constitutes significant differences in gross diet between and among demographic groups within the same population. Our results show that the absolute differences between isotopic central tendencies of demographic groups are small, but some are significant. Socioeconomic categories that were found to have significantly different isotopic signatures between or among groups included age groups (δ13C X2 = 76.99, df = 4, p = 0.000 and δ15N X2 = 86.85, df = 4, p = 0.000), locations (δ13C Mann Whitney U = 5992.000, p = 0.000 and δ15N Mann Whitney U = 8926.000, p = 0.021), and wealth (mean δ15N Mann Whitney U = 122.000, p = 0.003); there were no significant differences in isotopic signature between sexes.

Cite this Record

Dietary variability through isotopic analysis of modern human hair from Nicaragua: exploring significant differences in diet between and among demographic groups in a single population. Catherine G. Cooper, Angela Perri, Jessica L. Burns, Jeremy M. Koster, Michael P. Richards. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 428898)

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Spatial Coverage

min long: -94.702; min lat: 6.665 ; max long: -76.685; max lat: 18.813 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16404