Diachronic Analysis of Sequential Enamel Stable Isotope Analysis in Human Populations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The agricultural-demographic transition highlights a positive correlation between increasing consumption of agricultural products and population. However, this correlation varies regionally. In Eurasia, agriculture and population growth coincide with increasing sedentism hypothesized to drive population change. In the Amazon, agriculture and sedentism likely preceded population growth. Modeling suggests population shifts are dependent on increasing fertility, carrying capacity, and decreasing mortality. We explore the relationship between age-at-weaning as a proxy for inter-birth interval and relative population change in the neotropics during the transition to agriculture. If inter-birth interval decreases through time, this may indicate increased fitness and fertility. We present preliminary results of sequential-enamel sampling of phosphate by laser-ablation to create community-level diachronic sets of oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) values as a proxy for early childhood diet using multi-tooth dental samples of adult individuals from two rockshelter sites in modern-day Belize. A relative change in δ13C sample values correlated to early life stages indicates the introduction of solid foods. A relative change in δ18O sample values indicates weaning cessation. An age-at-weaning estimate based on isotopic changes relative to dental mineralization age is calculated for each individual. Changes in the timing of weaning may indicate a mechanism for population change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40189.0