Combining Proteomic Sex Determination of Archaeological Remains with Isotopic Analyses for Understanding the Development of Animal Husbandry

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Proteomic techniques are being increasingly used in bioarchaeological applications to improve understanding of the human past. However, few studies have focused on the study of tooth enamel for sexing in archaeofaunal remains despite initial studies over a decade ago looking at human teeth. Here we use of LC-orbitrap-MS/MS for identifying the sex of archaeological cattle and sheep remains in comparison to humans from a range of sites across Europe. Through combination with carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopes, these biomolecular techniques have the potential to better understand the evolution and development of animal husbandry practices. However, with proteomic sex identification being still in its infancy, there are several key limitations that need to be further investigated, largely relating to the unconventional methods utilized. These limitations and the extent to which they differ relating to the taxon being investigated will be discussed, as well as latest advances in improving these methods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41628.0