Comparative Stable Isotopic Analyses between Dental Enamel and Bone Collagen among Central American Archaeological Samples Spanning 8,000 Years

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Interdisciplinary Isotopic Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen stable isotope analyses are popular tools within the field of archaeology. Applications for stable isotope analyses of human and faunal bone collagen and dental enamel include environmental reconstructions, modeling subsistence patterns, and investigating human-animal relationships, as well as potential to better understand human and animal physiology as it relates to carbon.

Using materials from two rock shelter sites in the Maya lowlands of southern Belize with a 10,000 year continuous use history, this project examines the relationship between δ13C in tooth enamel and in bone collagen. We analyzed paired dental enamel and XAD purified bone collagen from 40 skeletons of humans and animals from two rockshelter sites in Belize dating from 9000-1000 BP. We present data on the offset between δ13C from collagen and enamel within functional groups or taxa. We assess if there is a relationship between animal diet and δ13C collagen-enamel offset, as well as if there is a change in the offset between human foragers and agriculturalists. Finally we assess the relationship between enamel δ18O and enamel-carbon offsets, and suggest some physiological processes to explain the overall differences.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Interdisciplinary Isotopic Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25632