Application of Dietary Isotopes to Questions of Medicolegal Significance

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Intersection of Archaeological Science and Forensic Science" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Isotopic analysis of human remains has been used in archaeological and forensic contexts to examine diets, mobility, and the geographical origin of individuals (Bartelink and Chesson 2019). We applied dietary isotope analysis, a method more commonly applied in archaeological science research, to 30 unidentified human remains from British Columbia, Canada, to explore whether this relatively inexpensive method can be used to separate out archaeological and modern (forensic) human remains. This project was on behalf of, and in collaboration with, the British Columbia (Canada) Coroners Service. We extracted bone collagen and measured carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotopes in the Archaeology Isotope Laboratory, at the Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Canada (Longin 1971, Brown et al. 1988, and Collins and Galley 1998). Using K-means cluster analysis, the results clustered into two distinct groups; archaeological or contemporary. Radiocarbon dating was then used to confirm the findings of the isotope analysis and to ensure the correct attribution to the modern or archaeological clusters. Cases considered to be archaeological are returned to local communities for reburial, while those determined to be contemporary indicate possible forensic cases. This study shows the utility of applying methods mostly used in archaeological science to forensic research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Intersection of Archaeological Science and Forensic Science   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38636.0