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Hunter-gatherer mobility strategies and resource use based on strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis: a case study from Middle Holocene Lake Baikal, Siberia
Abstract
In order to test the previously formulated hypotheses regarding mobility and resource procurement strategies practiced by Middle Holocene Glazkovo foragers in the Baikal region of Siberia, stable strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis was applied to human remains from the Bronze Age Khuzhir-Nuge XIV cemetery. The main goal was to differentiate between two alternative models: one based on resource acquisition within a relatively large territorial range encompassing most of the Cis-Baikal area, and the other involving a smaller annual range mainly confined to specific micro-regions. A secondary goal was to explore inter-individual variability in strontium ratios, and potential sociocultural correlates. Interpretation of the human data involved assessment of the biologically available strontium isotope ratios, tissue biology, trophic level effect, species-specific Sr-catchment, composition of human diet, sharing of resources, and mobility-related technology. The results indicate a considerable degree of intra- and inter-individual variability in strontium isotope ratios and long-term foraging territories focusing on the west coast of Lake Baikal but including other parts of the Baikal region.
... Archaeological investigations of the Cis-Baikal region, Siberia (Russian Federation; Figure 2.1), are numerous, with much of the information on ancient hunter-gatherers in this area coming from mortuary sites and bioarchaeological analysis (e.g. Bazaliiskii, 2010;Bazaliiskii et al., 2016;Goriunova and Novikov, 2010;Haverkort et al., 2008;Katzenberg et al., 2010;Lieverse, 2010;Lieverse et al., 2009;2007a;2007b;2008;Losey et al., 2013;Moussa et al., 2018;Movsesian et al., 2014, etc.). The Cis-Baikal incorporates the area north and west of Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest freshwater lake in the world (Figure 2.1; Hampton, 2008;Losey and Nomokonova, 2017a;Lut, 1978;Michael, 1958;Weber, 1995;Weber and Bettinger, 2010). ...
... Isotopic analyses have indicated that EN populations largely based their diet on terrestrial game, but also exploited lower trophic level fish from the lake (Katzenberg et al., 2010). They also indicated the higher consumption of riverine and lacustrine aquatic sources during the EN than in the later LN-EBA (Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age) periods in the Angara microregion (Haverkort et al., 2008;Katzenberg et al., 2010;Nomokonova et al., 2015), although fishing technology, such as hooks, was extremely variable in style during this period . ...
... BP and is archaeologically represented by the Glazkovo mortuary tradition in all four microregions of the Cis-Baikal (Weber et al., 2016b). Isotopic analyses indicated that this was also a time that saw migration into the Little Sea microregion from elsewhere in the Cis-Baikal (Haverkort et al., 2008;Weber and Goriunova, 2013). Due to the temporal continuity between LN and EBA groups, populations from these two time periods are often amalgamated for pre-and post-transition comparisons (such as Haverkort et al., 2008;Katzenberg et al., 2010;Lieverse, 2010;Lieverse et al., 2013;Moussa, 2015;Purchase, 2016;Stock et al., 2010;Temple et al., 2014). ...
The fragmentation and commingling of ancient human remains, particularly those from
disturbed contexts, poses great difficulties to the applicability of bioarcheological and forensic anthropological methods. Depending on the extent of fragmentation, human remains from disturbed contexts are often approached similarly to faunal assemblages. Anderson (1964), for example, states that fragmented and commingled human remains are typically analysed as sets of skeletal elements and not as groups of elements representing an individual, limiting the research that can be done with them (as cited by Glencross, 2014). As a part of the Baikal Archaeology Project, this thesis seeks to extend and develop existing bioarchaeological, forensic anthropological, and zooarchaeological methods to identify discrete individuals from the destroyed remains from the Early Neolithic cemetery Moty-Novaia Shamanka, situated in the Cis-Baikal Region of Siberia, Russia. It asks, how can we further develop and apply existing methods to salvage information from highly disturbed and fragmented human remains in order to better understand the context of MNS and reconstruct the individuality of those interred within it? By testing initial hypotheses generated from qualitative pair matches with osteometric and spatial data, this thesis
argues that individualization is possible beyond estimates of a minimum number of individuals, even in cases of high levels of fragmentation such as Moty-Novaia Shamanka. The methodological approach of this thesis challenges our perception of the informative value of fragmented and commingled human remains and provides an example of how other studies could approach individualization in situations where most context has been lost. Through this approach I was able to identify five discrete individuals from 1245 human bone fragments and make eight associations of multiple fragments form the same individual. Together, these groupings represented at least seven people. Throughout this process 16.23% of fragments were able to refit into 74 conjoins of two or more pieces. These results contribute to the greater understanding of hunter-gatherers in the Cis-Baikal region during the Middle Holocene by salvaging information from Moty-Novaia Shamanka, a site that has not yet been studied and could potentially contribute to key questions surrounding the culture history of the region.
... The human isotope data cannot exclude the possibility that the two groups had entirely or partially overlapping hunting ranges for terrestrial fauna. Strontium ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) isotope values on enamel and bone have been reported for 16 individuals from Lokomotiv (Haverkort et al. 2010); no such results have been published for Shamanka. These data are largely inconclusive about place of origin and mobility patterns, in large part because 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios in the environment show broad similarity throughout much of the region. ...
... Previous archaeological investigations of Middle Holocene human migration and foraging ranges in the Lake Baikal area have focused exclusively on the chemistry (d 13 C, d 15 N, 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, REE, and trace elements) of human skeletal remains (Haverkort et al. 2008(Haverkort et al. , 2010Scharlotta 2012;Scharlotta and Weber 2014;Scharlotta et al. 2011Scharlotta et al. , 2013Weber and Goriunova 2013;Weber et al. 2003. These studies have produced a number of compelling insights on foraging ranges and migration patterns, but they drew upon only one data source (human skeletons). ...
... Previous archaeological investigations of Middle Holocene human migration and foraging ranges in the Lake Baikal area have focused exclusively on the chemistry (d 13 C, d 15 N, 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, REE, and trace elements) of human skeletal remains (Haverkort et al. 2008(Haverkort et al. , 2010Scharlotta 2012;Scharlotta and Weber 2014;Scharlotta et al. 2011Scharlotta et al. , 2013Weber and Goriunova 2013;Weber et al. 2003. These studies have produced a number of compelling insights on foraging ranges and migration patterns, but they drew upon only one data source (human skeletons). ...
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of human remains from two contemporaneous cemeteries in the Lake Baikal region of Russia indicate similarity in diets among some individuals buried in these two locations. Given that the Middle Holocene cemeteries are only 75 km apart, these dietary data could indicate overlap in foraging ranges between the two human cemetery populations. Incisors from Siberian marmots (Marmota sibirica) are the most abundant type of faunal remains recovered from both cemeteries. Siberian marmots are a steppe species and hibernate over much of the year, being readily accessible to humans only during the summer and early fall. They are a fat-rich and desirable food item today in adjacent portions of Central Asia. To test if the dietary similarity between the two cemetery human groups might be due to overlapping hunting areas for marmots, Barium/Calcium and Strontium/Calcium ratios in a sample of marmot teeth were examined. The results of these analyses indicate very little overlap in the trace element values for the marmot teeth from the two cemeteries, which suggests the two human groups were procuring marmots in different regions. We argue that the dietary similarity seen between the two cemeteries can be best accounted for by shared use of isotopically similar fish moving between Lake Baikal and its tributary, the Angara River. An alternative explanation is that the overlapping isotope values are a result of human migration between the two cemetery regions.
... There have been considerable refinements to the technical capabilities, applications, and interpretations over the years. For example, the transition from using TIMS to SM-MC-ICP-MS and finally to LA-MC-ICP-MS that resulted in reductions in pretreatment efforts and overall sampling times and costs, the tandem-use of multiple analytical techniques, and the integration of first multi-elemental sampling and ultimately micro-sampling of these multiple skeletal elements to produce a robust body of data to reconstruct individual life histories (Dolphin et al., 2012;Dolphin et al., 2003;Dolphin et al., 2016;Farell et al., 2013;Haverkort et al., 2008;Kang et al., 2004;Knudson and Price, 2007;Scharlotta et al., 2011;Scharlotta et al., 2013;Scharlotta and Weber, 2014;Weber et al., 2003;Weber and Goriunova, 2013). However, it is rare to see the progression of methodological development within a single region, even using materials from the same individuals and/ or cemeteries (e.g., scale of analysis/sampling, destruction of samples, duration of life history elucidated, etc.) as has been possible with hunter-gatherers from Cis-Baikal, Siberia through the work of the Baikal Archaeology Project. ...
... This discussion is based in a series of articles and book chapters produced over the last decade by the Baikal Archaeology Project (BAP) focusing on is the Cis-Baikal region of eastern Siberia (Haverkort et al., 2010;Haverkort et al., 2008;Scharlotta et al., 2013;Scharlotta and Weber, 2014;Weber and Goriunova, 2013;Weber et al., 2011). This research was produced in an environment of rapidly changing technical and theoretical discussions about how to address hunter-gatherer and mobility research. ...
... Geochemical data is increasingly used as a proxy measure for mobility studies as its focus on materials (e.g., lithic, faunal, ceramic, housing) can often be correlated with categories of site-based concepts of mobility or sedentariness. Using geochemical data to discuss the movements of people directly within archaeology and has largely been applied to agrarian populations and to select hunter-gatherer and pastoralist populations (e.g., Balasse et al., 2002;Haverkort et al., 2008;Tafuri et al., 2006;Weber et al., 2003;Weber and Goriunova, 2013). It is useful to look at the progression of methods involved in biogeochemical analysis for mobility and/or migration studies. ...
... The upper and middle sections of the Angara River flow through Mesozoic and Quaternary deposits, with expected 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values in the range of 0.705-0.712. The upper Lena watershed and the surrounding Central Siberian Plateau are dominated by Cambrian and Precambrian limestones, with expected values fairly tightly clustered around 0.709 [22,23]. Overall values for Lake Baikal water are reported as 0.7085 [24]. ...
... The north-south orientation of Grave 7 is consistent with the Late Neolithic Serovo culture of the Ol'khon region, while all the other graves show clear similarities with the mortuary tradition of the Early Bronze Age Glazkovo culture [22,26,27]. The most diagnostic Glazkovo characteristics include the generally west-east orientation of the burials and such grave goods as copper or bronze objects (rings, knives, needles, and bracelets), kaolinite beads, and rings and discs made of white nephrite or calcite [28]. ...
... In previous studies [15,22,26] a sample of 25 individuals from KN XIV were analyzed for strontium isotope ratios and compared with 79 faunal samples collected throughout Lake Baikal and the Cis-Baikal region. Of these samples, there were 20 adult individuals for which all three molars and a femur sample were available, 5 subadult burials with only M1 and M2 crowns completed were included too. ...
Micro-sampling and analysis of tooth enamel from faunal samples in the archaeological record has enabled research into the mobility and seasonality of animals in prehistory. However, studies on human tooth samples have failed to yield similar results. It is well understood that human tooth enamel does not fully mineralize in a strictly linear fashion, but rather entails five recognizable stages of mineralization. Until the enamel matrix fully crystallizes, the matrix remains an open chemical system, thus at each stage of mineralization, the geochemical composition of the enamel matrix can be altered. At present it is unclear if failure to mirror the results from faunal teeth with human teeth is a factor of mineralization rates or simply the result of the difference in enamel volume and formation time between human and herbivore teeth. Therefore, the applicability of chemical analyses to human teeth is a balance between micro-sampling analytical techniques and generating archaeologically relevant data. Yet limited case studies have been performed to examine the scale and extent of this problem in human teeth using laser-ablation ICP-MS. Five human molars from an Early Bronze Age cemetery on the shores of Lake Baikal, Siberia were serially sampled and analyzed by means of laser-ablation quadrupole and multicollector ICP-MS in order to examine the nature of geochemical changes within the enamel matrix. This sampling was performed in order to generate a statistically significant dataset to assess the effectiveness of two approaches along with published methodologies to counter known problems with attempts to assess Sr87. Recent research has demonstrated that among the methodological problems, there is isobaric interference at mass 87 caused by the formation of calcium phosphate (Ca40PO) in response to interaction between the laser and the enamel matrix. Correction procedures using Zr91 in tandem with Ba/Sr ratios are examined. Additionally, serial sampling of teeth from hypothesized mobile hunter-gatherers provides useful insight into the dynamic interplay between physical sampling limitations and the scale at which useful geochemical data can be recovered from organic minerals. Traditional utilization of geochemical data for mobility has relied on a local/non-local dichotomy in population level analyses; however, this approach is of limited utility with regard to mobile populations. Our ability to effectively analyze skeletal materials at a micro scale provides our best hope at addressing the rift between recognition of an indirect relationship between biological intakes, mineral formation and being able to generate relevant analytical data.
... The technique has been successfully used in anthropology ever since (including e.g. Price et al. 2000;Bentley et al. 2003;Knudson et al. 2005;Price et al. 2008;Richards et al. 2008;Bastos et al. 2011) in studies from different parts or the world such as Africa (Cox and Sealy 1997;Stanley et al. 2003), Europe (Schweissing and Grupe 2000;Haak et al. 2008;Richards et al. 2008;Knudson et al. 2012b;Kendall et al. 2013), Asia (Haverkort et al. 2008;Mitchell and Millard 2009;Gregoricka 2013;Kenoyer et al. 2013), both Americas (English et al. 2001;Hodell et al. 2004;White et al. 2007;Andrushko et al. 2009;Eerkens et al. 2010;Price et al. 2010;Thornton 2011;Wright 2012) and Oceania (Bentley et al. 2007;Shaw et al. 2010;Shaw et al. 2011). Isotope studies use material from different historical periods, starting from the beginnings of the human species (Horn et al. 1994;Sillen et al. 1995;Sillen et al. 1998) and prehistory (Haak et al. 2008;Haverkort et al. 2008;Gregoricka 2013), through the Middle Ages (Mitchell and Millard 2009;Knudson et al. 2012b;Kendall et al. 2013) up to contemporary times (Voerkelius et al. 2010;Holobinko 2012). ...
... Price et al. 2000;Bentley et al. 2003;Knudson et al. 2005;Price et al. 2008;Richards et al. 2008;Bastos et al. 2011) in studies from different parts or the world such as Africa (Cox and Sealy 1997;Stanley et al. 2003), Europe (Schweissing and Grupe 2000;Haak et al. 2008;Richards et al. 2008;Knudson et al. 2012b;Kendall et al. 2013), Asia (Haverkort et al. 2008;Mitchell and Millard 2009;Gregoricka 2013;Kenoyer et al. 2013), both Americas (English et al. 2001;Hodell et al. 2004;White et al. 2007;Andrushko et al. 2009;Eerkens et al. 2010;Price et al. 2010;Thornton 2011;Wright 2012) and Oceania (Bentley et al. 2007;Shaw et al. 2010;Shaw et al. 2011). Isotope studies use material from different historical periods, starting from the beginnings of the human species (Horn et al. 1994;Sillen et al. 1995;Sillen et al. 1998) and prehistory (Haak et al. 2008;Haverkort et al. 2008;Gregoricka 2013), through the Middle Ages (Mitchell and Millard 2009;Knudson et al. 2012b;Kendall et al. 2013) up to contemporary times (Voerkelius et al. 2010;Holobinko 2012). ...
... Having been shaped in the early stages of life, enamel remains unchanged until death as a metabolically inactive tissue. Since enamel formation phases are strongly determined and well-studied by researchers, information on strontium isotope levels can be precisely referenced to a specific period of an individual's life, depending on tooth generation and type (Maziarski and Nowicki 1954;Lee-Thorp and Sponheimer 2003;Budd et al. 2004;White et al. 2004c;Daux et al. 2005;Dupras and Tocheri 2007;Haverkort et al. 2008). In contrast, bone undergoes elemental remodelling, which involves the change of the elemental composition of the newly formed hydroxyapatite, depending on the environment in which the new crystal is generated (White et al. 2004c;Wright 2005a;Price et al. 2006;Niedźwiedzki and Kuryszko 2007;Kenoyer et al. 2013). ...
Isotope analyses of bones and teeth allow us to study phenomena which occurred in the history of human species and which are difficult to capture by traditional anthropological methods. Measuring oxygen, nitrogen and carbon isotope levels in the skeleton makes it possible to reconstruct climatic changes, diet and/or the weaning process. Among isotopes used in such analyses are strontium isotopes, helpful in analysing migration and studying the mobility of historical and prehistoric human populations. In this respect, the proportion of two isotopes, the heavier
... There is very limited evidence for plant use during the Neolithic, however there is sufficient ethnographic evidence for the role that plants play in boreal forager subsistence systems around the world to speculate upon their usage. with expected values fairly tightly clustered around 0.709 22,23 . Overall values for Lake Baikal water are reported as 0.7085 24 . ...
... The north-south orientation of Grave 7 is consistent with the Late Neolithic Serovo culture of the Ol'khon region, while all the other graves show clear similarities with the mortuary tradition of the Early Bronze Age Glazkovo culture 22,26,27 . The most diagnostic Glazkovo characteristics include the generally west-east orientation of the burials and such grave goods as copper or bronze objects (rings, knives, needles, and bracelets), kaolinite beads, and rings and discs made of white nephrite or calcite 28 . ...
... In previous studies 15 This previous work has helped to expand the possible applications of strontium isotope research and helped to identify an interesting general pattern with several mobility profiles within KN XIV individuals. Broadly speaking, it appears that there was a significant amount of movement of individuals during their lifetime, whereby people buried at KN XIV were frequently not born in the Little Sea region, but only migrated there as subadults or adults 15,22 . ...
Micro-sampling and analysis of tooth enamel from faunal samples in the archaeological record has enabled research into the mobility and seasonality of animals in prehistory. However, studies on human tooth samples have failed to yield similar results. It is well understood that human tooth enamel does not fully mineralize in a strictly linear fashion, but rather entails five recognizable stages of mineralization. Until the enamel matrix fully crystallizes, the matrix remains an open chemical system, thus at each stage of mineralization, the geochemical composition of the enamel matrix can be altered. At present it is unclear if failure to mirror the results from faunal teeth with human teeth is a factor of mineralization rates or simply the result of the difference in enamel volume and formation time between human and herbivore teeth. Therefore, the applicability of chemical analyses to human teeth is a balance between microsampling analytical techniques and generating archaeologically relevant data. Yet limited case studies have been performed to examine the scale and extent of this problem in human teeth using laser-ablation ICP-MS. Five human molars from an Early Bronze Age cemetery on the shores of Lake Baikal, Siberia were serially sampled and analyzed by means of laser-ablation quadrupole and multicollector ICP-MS in order to examine the nature of geochemical changes within the enamel matrix. This sampling was performed in order to generate a statistically significant dataset to assess the effectiveness of two approaches along with
published methodologies to counter known problems with attempts to assess Sr87. Recent research has demonstrated that among the methodological problems, there is isobaric interference at mass 87 caused by the formation of calcium phosphate (Ca40PO) in response to interaction between the laser and the enamel matrix. Correction procedures using Zr91 in tandem with Ba/Sr ratios are examined. Additionally, serial sampling of teeth from hypothesized mobile hunter-gatherers provides useful insight into the dynamic interplay between physical sampling limitations and the scale at which useful geochemical data can be recovered from organic minerals. Traditional utilization of geochemical data for mobility has relied on a local/non-local dichotomy in population level analyses; however, this approach is of limited utility with regard to mobile populations. Our ability to effectively analyze skeletal materials at a micro scale provides our best hope at addressing the rift between recognition of an indirect relationship between biological intakes, mineral formation and being able to generate relevant analytical data.
... The first was a simple brushing and washing prior to analysis by atomic absorption spectrometry as described by Szpunar et al. (1978). The second method described by Lambert et al. (1989) entailing a mechanical cleaning and removal of 1-3 mm of the outer and inner portions of the bone using aluminum oxide sandpaper, this has changed to high precision dental burrs under microscopic examination (e.g., Haverkort et al. 2008;Milella et al. 2019). The two chemical methods were the solubility profile method discussed by Sillen (1986) and a treatment with 1 N acetic acid similar to that of Sullivan and Krueger (1981). ...
... Following this assertion, the use of bones to determine biologically available strontium began to take hold Depaermentier et al. 2020;Grupe et al. 1997). Other suggestions have been investigated, such as faunal remains (teeth, bone, and shells) (e.g., Bentley et al. 2004;Haverkort et al. 2008;Milella et al. 2019), soils, stream water, and plants (e.g., Perry et al. 2017;Snoeck et al. 2016). There are issues associated with each of these materials, for instance, bone is problematic as there is potential for the biogenic and diagenetic strontium values mixing (Madgwick et al. 2019). ...
Strontium isotopic and concentration results from archeological skeletons have proved useful in demonstrating human and animal mobility patterns, and dietary life-history. This initiated the movement from proxies to answer these questions. However, there remains an issue as to whether the produced isotopic and concentration values are those accumulated by an individual during life and not an analytical artifact or the result of remaining diagenetic material or other forms of contamination. Over the last 40 years, there have been a variety of protocols used with varying success to remove contaminants prior to analysis, as well as a movement from bone analysis to solely enamel. This review covers the evolution of pretreatment protocols, the role of technological advances in producing accurate and precise results, and a discussion of best practices. Archeological case studies will demonstrate the evolution of these topics as well as their limitations and potential.
... Whatever the case, there is clear evidence and agreement about the presence of non-local individuals in Little Sea EBA-Glazkovo cemeteries. Different scenarios to explain the influx of non-locals include a larger seasonal round, more long-distance 'macro-regional' interaction, and/or the prosperity of Little Sea Glazkovo society drawing in individuals from neighbouring groups (Haverkort et al., 2008;Shepard et al., 2016;Weber, 2020;Weber and Goriunova, 2013). Our analysis contributes to this discussion by adding a new isotope dataset of Late Neolithic Serovo individuals to the otherwise scant sample from this population, facilitating a more substantive comparison of the two periods especially in terms of subsistence practices. ...
... What could have caused this pattern? Weber and Goriunova (2013) found a mix of individuals with different geochemical signatures of birthplace and childhood locality for the EBA Mainland individuals of Khuzhir-Nuge XIV (and see Haverkort et al., 2008;Scharlotta et al., 2013;Weber et al., 2011). This, combined with the range of δ 13 C and δ 15 N values indicating the GFS and GF diet, is what led them to suggest there was regular travel between the Little Sea and a non-local area, possibly the Upper Lena Microregion Weber et al., 2011). ...
Research on Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers from the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia has yielded many insights into their dietary and mobility patterns. A large dataset of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope values, when paired with freshwater-reservoir corrected carbon-14 dates, allows us to conduct fine-scale investigations into dietary change. Our Small Cemeteries Project has increased the sample of Late Neolithic (LN) Serovo individuals, and Ol'khon Island burials, allowing for new investigations into changes between the Serovo and subsequent Early Bronze Age (EBA) Glazkovo mortuary traditions in the Little Sea Microregion. This is important because research exploring the extent and nature of cultural continuity and change between these mortuary traditions has received less attention than more pronounced earlier transitions. We use stable isotope data from 134 adolescents and adults to explore (1) temporal changes in δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values across the Serovo and Glazkovo mortuary traditions, and (2) differences in stable isotope values between individuals buried on Ol'khon Island vs. the Mainland. During Serovo times, Islanders and Mainlanders were eating somewhat different diets, with the former consuming more seal and the latter more shallow-water fish. Glazkovo Islanders maintained a broadly similar diet to their Serovo Islander predecessors suggesting the continued existence of a specialized group of Island seal hunters. After ~4100 calBP, and the arrival of the Glazkovo mortuary tradition in the Little Sea Microregion, there is the appearance of a new group of Mainlanders consuming a diet with low δ¹⁵N (≤ 14.6‰) and/or low δ¹³C (≤ ˗19.0‰) values unlike anything seen previously. This diet included less lake fish and seal and more terrestrial herbivores. Previous research has shown that many Mainland Glazkovo individuals with this new diet were non-local. Our study finds that just over half of Glazkovo Mainlanders have a low δ¹³C or δ¹⁵N value and they are found in all cemeteries with multiple individuals. This suggests such individuals, many of which were non-local, were fully incorporated into local social groups. Further increasing the sample of LN and Island individuals is needed to better establish these findings; nonetheless, our research highlights the diversity in Middle Holocene adaptive strategies in the Little Sea Microregion.
... Changes in strontium isotopes ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) in the bones of individuals reflect the average intake of strontium from food and water over the last 7-10 years of the individuals' lives [10,11]. The strontium isotope analysis of archaeological bones has been used to reconstruct the transition from a sedentary to a pastoral style of life for sites of several prehistoric periods [12], as well as to study the adaptations of hunter-gatherers in ancient times [13]. Strontium isotopy has been applied to questions of marriage, migration, conquest, and colonization in prehistoric Europe [1-3,14-19]. ...
Comparison of the 87Sr/86Sr signatures of archaeological osteological material with features of geological provinces can be applied to determine the places of birth and living of individuals. Such reconstructions were conducted for both humans and domestic animals at the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age sites of the Crimea. The Crimean Peninsula is an interesting testing polygon for such research because it is characterized by a diverse geological situation within a relatively small area. The initial data allowed us to distinguish between three groups of mobility at the Bai-Kiyat I settlement and two groups at the Dolgii Bugor site. The Bai-Kiyat I site is located on the seacoast, so the proxy line for this area will correspond to the value of the ratio of strontium isotopes in seawater (0.7092). The inhabitants of this settlement, including a child from a burial on the settlement, are characterized by this value of strontium isotopes. Other groups include nonlocal people. The data obtained indicate that the steppe zone of the Northern Black Sea region was an ecumene, within which active mobility of groups of people was registered. This mobility is associated primarily with the pastoral type of economy in the period from the Chalcolithic to the Early Iron Age.
... Studies on archaeological hunter-gatherer-fisher networks and movements have for some decades been facilitated by 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope ratio analysis (Ericson, 1985;Haverkort et al., 2008;Kjällquist and Price, 2019;Klassen et al., 2020). The two main principles that have facilitated the application are 1) a very long half-life of the radiogenic 87 Sr isotope (48.8 billion years) (Faure and Mensing, 2005), which makes the changes in 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios neglectable in the relatively short time frame of archaeological contexts, and 2) an unaltered transfer of Sr-ratios from the bedrock to the soil and then onwards into plants and water systems (Flockhart et al., 2015;Graustein, 1989). ...
The input of strontium from aquatic resources in an omnivorous diet has been researched to a lesser degree than that of terrestrial sources, which, in specific sociocultural settings, complicates the study of provenance and mobility. To address this lack of research and to investigate forager mobility in an archipelago environment, where access to terrestrial resources was limited and earlier studies have indicated a dependence on marine resources, we targeted the mid-Neolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers from the site Jettböle on the Åland Islands. Using laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, we analysed the 87Sr/86 Sr ratios in the enamel of human and dog teeth and contextualized the data with bioavailable Sr measurements from various water and animal enamel sources. The results show that utilization and consumption of aquatic resources have had a major impact on the Sr ratios of both humans and dogs from Jettböle. The data indicate significant differences from the local terrestrial bioavailable Sr ratios, even if the studied individuals likely grew up in the area. Our results suggest that investigations of Sr isotope ratios may be especially challenging for PWC individuals and other coastal living groups. By comparing both Sr ratios and the sequential measurement pattern from the investigated subjects to other human groups and animals it has, nevertheless, been possible to offer a tentative interpretation of both the origin and mobility patterns of humans and dogs from Jettböle. Most of the individuals may be suggested to have originated, and subsided on a diet, from within the Åland archipelago. It is also possible that some of the studied individuals moved there from different regions.
... Several recent projects have researched mobility and migration in the Eurasian steppe through stable isotopic analyses (Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling 2015;Gerling et al. 2012;Haverkort et al. 2008;Lillie et al. 2012;Ventresca Miller, Bragina et al. 2018;Ventresca Miller, Winter-Schuh et al. 2018). One broad study across disparate microregions in Eurasia used 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and d 18 O isotopes to focus on the link between mobility and culture change (Gerling 2015). ...
... In archaeological contexts, little is known and only a limited number of studies have attempted to study specific group foraging ranges and hunting or gathering practises related to a settlement or a specific group of people (Boethius et al., 2022a;David and Kj€ allquist, 2018;Haverkort et al., 2008). A deeper understanding of ethnographic forager mobility patterns has contributed to an increased understanding of ethnographic groups and societies (Kelly, 1983). ...
Mobility is one of the most fundamental aspects of a foraging society. Since prehistoric mobility is often difficult to identify in the archaeological record, our understanding is largely based on comparison with ethnographic communities. In recent years the application of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope analysis has, however, greatly broadened our knowledge of mobility in the past. Despite this, few studies have been undertaken on faunal remains to explore their mobility patterns and infer human exploitation patterns with more precision. In this contribution we sampled 28 mammal teeth from three different occupation phases at the Early to Mid-Holocene coastal site of Huseby Klev, Sweden. We first established the local baseline for seven geographical areas in the region surrounding Huseby Klev. Then, by applying laser ablation-multi collector-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to the selected teeth, we identified the likely origins of a range of terrestrial and marine fauna, and the possible human mobility patterns required in their exploitation. Overall, our results demonstrate that the prehistoric communities inhabiting Huseby Klev undertook both short- and long-distance forays for the exploitation of particular species. By relating inferences on hunting grounds, derived from strontium isotope data, to zooarchaeological evidence from the site and ethnographic human mobility patterns, we establish and discuss the prerequisites for landscape utilization. Lastly, we demonstrate that glacial meltwater may have temporally affected the local oceanic Sr ratios – suggesting significantly increased soil and bedrock weathering may influence the Sr values in aquatic ecosystems and, consequently, should be considered in such regions and at times of melting glaciers. By applying the method to additional sites and assemblages in the future, our understanding of prehistoric mobility will be greatly enhanced.
... Traditional Sr analyses involve comparisons of bulk Sr isotope ratios in a tooth to local Sr baseline data. When tracking mobility, analyses of different teeth, with varied timing of enamel mineralization, from the same individual have been used (Blank et al. 2021;Haverkort et al. 2008). Recent developments in sampling methods allow a finer resolution, and by micro-sampling a tooth, it is possible to analyse small enamel sections and obtain information from a few weeks of spotspecific mineralization instead of averaged data from the entire tooth. ...
Strontium isotope ratios in human teeth from the three Swedish prehistoric Stone Age hunter-fisher-gathering societies Norje Sunnansund (Maglemose), Skateholm (Ertebølle) and Västerbjers (Pitted Ware Culture) were analysed with laser ablation to produce data on both individual movement patterns and societal mobility trends. The analyses of teeth from both Skateholm and Västerbjers displayed homogeneous ratios and corresponding mobility patterns, while the data from Norje Sunnansund showed larger variances with heterogenous strontium ratios and varied inter-individual mobility patterns. Correlation with the bioavailable baseline suggests that the size of the geographical areas, where human strontium ratios could have originated, was roughly comparable for all three sites. The teeth measurements were reflected within a 50-km radius of the surrounding landscape and the 25–75% data quartile matched with distances between 3 and 30 km from the sites, suggesting limited mobility ranges among aquatically dependent foragers from southernmost Sweden. By applying ethnographic analogies and site-specific contextual inferences, the results suggest that mobility ranges at Norje Sunnansund were likely not delimited by neighbouring group territories. This changed over time and an increasing territorialisation of the landscape may have influenced movement patterns and caused restrictions to the foraging activities at both Skateholm and Västerbjers.
... Lake Baikal is the largest lake in Asia and the deepest on Earth (as deep as 1642 m). It serves as an iconic locality for studies of paleoclimate (Colman et al., 1995;Prokopenko et al., 2006;Moore et al., 2009) and can be potentially used as a key object for understanding animal and human migration in the recent geological past in Siberia (Haverkort et al., 2008;Scharlotta et al., 2013;Weber and Goriunova, 2013;Madsen, 2015;Kilinc et al., 2018). The 87 Sr/ 86 Sr of the dissolved riverine strontium depends on the average bedrock age and composition of drainage regions (Peucker-Ehrenbrinka and Fiske, 2019). ...
We provide an extended ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr database for the water of Lake Baikal collected along the lake and within its bays at a depth range from the surface down to 1366 m, the major tributary rivers, lake animals, and atmospheric precipitation. The water of open Lake Baikal, the Little Sea (Maloe More) Strait, and large bays are characterized by a uniform ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr = 0.7086266 ± 0.0000045 (n = 44, uncertainty at 95% confidence interval). Major volumetric contributors of water to the lake (the eastern rivers and precipitation) are only slightly different from the lake value in terms of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr. In the western rivers, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr is much higher, but due to their small incoming volume, their contribution is rapidly diluted by the water currents of the lake. The exception is water with high ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr from isolated Mukhor Bay at the inland end of the Little Sea Strait and water above the underwater discharge of hydrothermal springs. Benthic and pelagic Lake Baikal animals have ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr similar to the values of the open lake, supporting lake water homogenization. The modelled budget of Sr suggests that 86 ± 14% of input Sr is stored in the waters of Lake Baikal. In other words, according to the estimations some Sr (from 0 to 28%) may be precipitated at the lake bottom by chemical and biochemical processes.
... Several recent projects have researched mobility and migration in the Eurasian steppe through stable isotopic analyses (Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling 2015;Gerling et al. 2012;Haverkort et al. 2008;Lillie et al. 2012;Ventresca Miller, Bragina et al. 2018;Ventresca Miller, Winter-Schuh et al. 2018). One broad study across disparate microregions in Eurasia used 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and d 18 O isotopes to focus on the link between mobility and culture change (Gerling 2015). ...
... TIMS analyses are most commonly done on bulk sampled teeth, which gives highprecision values of the average strontium ratios for the enamel mineralization period. By comparing the averaged strontium values from teeth with different mineralization periods, it has been possible to identify the movement between different locations (Blank et al. 2021;Haverkort et al. 2008). ...
To evaluate the possibility of obtaining detailed individual mobility data from archaeological teeth, the strontium isotope ratios on 28 human teeth from three separate Early-Mid Holocene, Swedish, foraging contexts (Norje Sunnansund, Skateholm and Västerbjers) were analysed through laser ablation. The teeth/individuals have previously been analysed using traditional bulk sampled thermal ionisation mass spectrometry. To validate the conclusions regarding the archaeological teeth, a tooth from a modern man with a known background was also analysed. The result shows that all of the teeth display less than 0.4% discrepancy between the mean values of the laser ablation profiles and the previously published bulk data and 25 (89%) of the teeth display less than a 0.2% discrepancy. By calculating linear and polynomial trendlines for each ablated tooth, it was possible to illustrate a strong correlation for the transition pattern between the measurements when following a chronological sequence from the tip to the cervix. Such correlations were not reproduced when the data sequence was randomized. The analyses show that the chronologically sequenced ablation data fit with a transition between local bioavailable strontium regions, that the measurements do not fluctuate between extremes and that their values are not caused by end-member mixing. This indicates an increasing data resolution when reducing strontium isotope ratio averaging time by minimizing the sampling area. The results suggest strontium incorporation in human teeth can be measured on an ordinal scale, with a traceable chronological order to enamel mineralization when sampled from tip to cervix at an equal distance from the surface. Micro-sampling enamel is considered a valid method to assess prehistoric, but not modern, human mobility; laser ablation technology increases the amount of information obtained from a single tooth while rendering minimal damage to the studied specimen.
... A number of publications have focused on prehistoric mobility in the Eurasian steppe, including populations from Kazakhstan (Bernbeck et al., 2011;Ventresca Miller et al., 2017), Baikal region (Haverkort et al., 2008;Weber & Goriunova, 2013), Mongolia (Machicek et al., 2019), the Carpathian Basin (Gerling et al., 2012), and the Pontic region . Overall, these studies suggest that, with few exceptions, mobility among Eurasian pastoralists was mostly small-scale and within limited ranges (Makarewicz, 2018). ...
The traditional notions of "nomadic" cultures as homogenously mobile and economically simple is increasingly displaced by more nuanced interpretations. A large part of the scientific literature on diet and mobility among Eurasian pastoralists is focused on Bronze Age and Iron Age. The relative underrepresentation of more recent contexts in these analyses hampers a full discussion of possible chronological trajectories. In this study we explore diet and mobility at Tunnug1 (Republic of Tuva, 2nd-4th century CE), and test their possible correlation with social differentiation. We compare demographic patterns of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur stable isotope ratios (d13C, d15N, d34S) among 65 humans and 12 animals from Tunnug1 using nonparametric tests and Bayesian modeling. We then compare isotopic data with data on perimortal skeletal lesions of anthropic origin and funerary variables.
Results show that: 1) diet at Tunnug1 was largely based on C4 plants (likely millet) and animal proteins 2) only few individuals were nonlocals, although their geographic origin remains unclarified 3) no differences in diet separates individuals based on sex and funerary treatment. In contrast, individuals with perimortal lesions show carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios consistent with a diet incorporating a lower consumption of millet and animal proteins.
Our study provides new insights about the sociocultural variability of pastoralist societies in Southern Siberia during the early centuries CE. At the same time, they further support the economic importance of millet for these communities.
... A number of publications have focused on prehistoric mobility in the Eurasian steppe, including populations from Kazakhstan (Bernbeck et al., 2011;Ventresca Miller et al., 2017), Baikal region (Haverkort et al., 2008;Weber & Goriunova, 2013), Mongolia (Machicek et al., 2019), the Carpathian Basin (Gerling et al., 2012), and the Pontic region . Overall, these studies suggest that, with few exceptions, mobility among Eurasian pastoralists was mostly small-scale and within limited ranges (Makarewicz, 2018). ...
Objectives: Contemporary archeological theory emphasizes the economic and social
complexity of Eurasian steppe populations. As a result, old notions of “nomadic” cultures
as homogenously mobile and economically simple are now displaced by more
nuanced interpretations. Large part of the literature on diet and mobility among Eurasian
pastoralists is focused on the Bronze and Iron Ages. The underrepresentation
of more recent contexts hampers a full discussion of possible chronological trajectories.
In this study we explore diet and mobility at Tunnug1 (Republic of Tuva, 2nd–
4th century CE), and test their correlation with social differentiation.
Materials and Methods: We compare demographic patterns (by age-at-death and
sex) of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur stable isotope ratios (δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S) among
65 humans and 12 animals from Tunnug1 using nonparametric tests and Bayesian
modeling. We then compare isotopic data with data on perimortal skeletal lesions of
anthropic origin and funerary variables.
Results: Our analyses show that: (1) diet at Tunnug1 was largely based on C4 plants
(likely millet) and animal proteins; (2) few individuals were nonlocals, although their
geographic origin remains unclarified; (3) no differences in diet separates individuals
based on sex and funerary treatment. In contrast, individuals with perimortal lesions
show carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios consistent with a diet incorporating a
lower consumption of millet and animal proteins.
Discussion: Our results confirm the previously described socioeconomic variability of
steppe populations, providing at the same time new data about the economic importance
of millet in Southern Siberia during the early centuries CE.
... Over the last several decades, radiogenic and stable isotopic ratios have provided bioarchaeologists with a powerful means of reconstructing mobility in the past (Bentley, 2006 ). When articulated with other data (e.g., skeletal, archaeological, historical), we have the opportunity to ask a wide range of questions related to the movement of peoples in the past, including the impact of interregional socio-politics (e.g., Buzon and Simonetti 2013 ), social identity and inequality (Torres-Rouff and Knudson, 2017 ), imperialism (Tung and Knudson, 2011 ), enslavement (Price et al., 2006 ), and subsistence strategies (Haverkort et al., 2008 ). These types of studies provide nuanced reconstructions of human behavior in response to myriad social, political, and economic factors. ...
... The median absolute deviation (MAD) method has been proven to be a rigorous statistical method in the identification of outliers [95]. Overall, the average local range for the sites under study vary from ±0.0001 to ±0.020 and can be compared to previous strontium isotope studies worldwide with local ranges from 0.0010 to 0.0050 [96][97][98]. Distances of potential mobility for non-local individuals were determined using the map of geologic substrates (Fig 2). We measured from the site centre to the nearest substrate with similar estimated 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios to create a minimum distance of movement. ...
The Scythians are frequently presented, in popular and academic thought alike, as highly mobile warrior nomads who posed a great economic risk to growing Mediterranean empires from the Iron Age into the Classical period. Archaeological studies provide evidence of first millennium BCE urbanism in the steppe while historical texts reference steppe agriculture, challenging traditional characterizations of Scythians as nomads. However, there have been few direct studies of the diet and mobility of populations living in the Pontic steppe and forest-steppe during the Scythian era. Here, we analyse strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope data from human tooth enamel samples, as well as nitrogen and carbon isotope data of bone collagen, at several Iron Age sites across Ukraine commonly associated with ‘Scythian’ era communities. Our multi-isotopic approach demonstrates generally low levels of human mobility in the vicinity of urban locales, where populations engaged in agro-pastoralism focused primarily on millet agriculture. Some individuals show evidence for long-distance mobility, likely associated with significant inter-regional connections. We argue that this pattern supports economic diversity of urban locales and complex trading networks, rather than a homogeneous nomadic population.
... Th is period is clearly one when there is evidence of broader regional interaction and possibly mobility, yet it is conspicuously absent from previous research on mobility in the steppe. Few studies use oxygen isotopes to examine mobility or locality in the central Eurasian steppe (Haverkort et al. 2008;Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling et al. 2012;Weber and Guriunova 2012). Th e research presented here is the fi rst to examine direct evidence of human mobility for this time period through analyses of enamel carbonate δ 18 O values. ...
... Th is period is clearly one when there is evidence of broader regional interaction and possibly mobility, yet it is conspicuously absent from previous research on mobility in the steppe. Few studies use oxygen isotopes to examine mobility or locality in the central Eurasian steppe (Haverkort et al. 2008;Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling et al. 2012;Weber and Guriunova 2012). Th e research presented here is the fi rst to examine direct evidence of human mobility for this time period through analyses of enamel carbonate δ 18 O values. ...
... Bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr datasets from plants, soils or local animals have multiplied over the last decade to capture this variability in archeologically-relevant regions of the globe under the assumption that modern samples are valid to develop 87 Sr/ 86 Sr baselines in archeological regions (e.g. Haverkort et al., 2008;Nafplioti, 2011;Frei, 2013;Hartman and Richards, 2014;Kootker et al., 2016;Barberena et al., 2017Barberena et al., , 2019Bataille et al., 2018;Ryan et al., 2018;Snoeck et al., 2018;Willmes et al., 2018;Lengfelder et al., 2019). ...
... A clear relationship between food ingestion and tooth enamel composition in animals has been shown in modern experiments (Lewis et al., 2017) supporting the argument that animals provide a simple and direct link, via their food, to the areas which they grazed. Studies based on animal tooth enamel include using them to establish baseline data, on the assumption they are in situ and local (Zhao et al., 2012); using the animals' movements to trace/establish hunting routes (Haverkort et al., 2008;Britton et al., 2011); to provide a proxy for origin for their human "owners" at feast sites Madgwick et al., 2019b;Vaiglova et al., 2018;Viner et al., 2010); tracing the introduction or spread of exotic species (Sykes et al., 2006); animal management strategy (Sharpe et al., 2018) and for assessing trade routes (Madgwick et al., 2019a;Minniti et al., 2014). The hypsodont structure of the herbivore tooth provides the opportunity for high resolution analysis of seasonal behaviour, commonly used in dietary and seasonality studies (Balasse, 2002;Towers et al., 2011). ...
87Sr/86Sr isotope analysis was performed on 45 cattle teeth, 5 sheep/goat teeth and 2 pig teeth from two archaeological sites in the Netherlands, dating to the Iron Age and Roman period. This makes it one of the largest strontium isotope projects focusing on animals from the Netherlands - to date. An integrated approach was taken, combining the strontium results with those from archaeology and zooarchaeology. Mobility of cattle in the Iron Age is demonstrated for five of the 23 analysed samples from the rural settlement of Houten-Castellum by strontium isotope analysis. Three animals travelled over considerable distances (over 150 km) to Houten and oxygen and carbon stable isotope values support a non-local origin for one of these animals. There is little evidence for incoming animals at this site during the Roman period with only one animal recording a non-local strontium isotope signature. In contrast, strontium isotopes indicate at least four different geographic origins for livestock in the Roman town of Heerlen, with none of the cattle being local. The results highlight the differing behaviour in the two sites. Whereas for a rural settlement like Houten, the Iron Age influx of animals might be explained by gift exchange, trade or cattle raids, it is likely that the flow of traded livestock during the Roman Period would go from rural settlement to towns and army camps. Heerlen represented the destination of animals derived from the surrounding areas to supply an active Roman town.
... The main objective of this assessment was to carry out a study of oxygen and strontium isotopic analyses at these locations in order to identify patterns of human mobility and to build initial "local" (baseline) oxygen (δ 18 O) and strontium ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) isotopic signatures for these regions of Mongolia. Oxygen and strontium isotopic analyses have increasingly been utilized in eastern Eurasia for applications such as characterizing dietary intake, establishing local and non-local residency, identifying mobility patterns, and to study past climate regimes (e.g., Haverkort et al. 2008;Turner et al. 2012;Weber and Goriunova 2012;Gerling 2015;Yonemoto et al. 2016;Yonemoto et al. 2017). Previous research in Mongolia based on molecular analysis of both modern and archeological faunal remains has revealed important insights centered on the impact of foddering and seasonal climate variation on stable oxygen (δ 18 O), carbon (δ 13 C), and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotopic signatures (Kirsanow et al. 2008;Makarewicz 2014). ...
The steppes of Central Asia have long been inhabited by communities practicing various forms of mobile pastoralism as their primary means of subsistence. This study explores the relationship between human mobility and organizational strategies at two distinct micro-regions situated within the modern-day borders of Mongolia. Our investigation was based on an analysis of oxygen (δ¹⁸Op) and strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) isotopes in archeological human skeletal remains (n = 30) from Baga Gazaryn Chuluu, situated within the middle Gobi Desert and the Egiin Gol Valley in north-central Mongolia. The results indicate a marked degree of separation in local baseline values between the two regions, and corresponding variation was observed in the human skeletal samples. Intra-regional comparisons found that most individuals appear to have spent their childhood years within a “local” range for each particular region, with several notable exceptions that likely indicate a greater degree of lifetime mobility for certain individuals. Overall, the results support the probability that mobility patterns in the past were related to subsistence strategies developed within the discrete environmental zones that characterize the central regions of Mongolia.
... The first regional case study is Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Multiple strontium isotope signatures were obtained from 54 individuals at three hunter-gatherer cemeteries dating from 8000 to 4000 BP (Haverkort et al. 2008;Haverkort et al. 2010;Weber and Goriunova 2013). Apart from the fact that these are the only forager populations in the database, this sample is remarkable because strontium ratios for all three molars (M1, M2, and M3) are available for most individuals. ...
Strontium isotope analysis of archeological skeletal materials is a highly effective and commonly employed analytical tool to investigate past human mobility and migration. Most such studies to date have focused on the analysis of a single tooth sample per individual to identify migration. Increasingly, however, studies have analyzed multiple teeth from the same individual permitting the detection of migrations occurring during childhood, more fine-grained temporal resolution of the age at which migration(s) occurred, and even the identification of multiple migration episodes. In this study, we review the application of such approaches to a wide range of archeological contexts worldwide. We compiled and analyzed published ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr data for 1043 individuals from 122 sites to explore the potential variability of childhood mobility patterns cross-culturally. The results demonstrate a high degree of variability in childhood mobility that differs significantly between different regions and time periods. Potential interpretations involved in multiple tooth ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr analysis are reviewed, including heterogeneity in variance of regional ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, as well as variability in human mobility patterns such as residential change of whole family, fosterage, herding activities, post-marital residence rules, or forced migrations. Various limitations and caveats concerning the multiple teeth sampling approach are also critically discussed.
... The application of radiogenic strontium isotope analysis has been established as a proven method for reconstructing the paleo-mobility of people (Bentley et al., 2003;Haverkort et al., 2008;Standen et al., 2017), animals (Bendrey et al., 2009) and other artificial materials (Henderson et al., 2005). Moreover, strontium isotopic analysis on animal tooth enamel has made great contributions to detecting food and water intake sources and tracing potential seasonal movements and spatial mobility patterns (Copeland et al., 2016;Valenzuela-Lamas et al., 2016;Lugli et al., 2017). ...
The Sarakenos Cave in Greece, which preserves a series of cultural phases from the Middle Paleolithic to the Middle Helladic (approximately 1600 BCE), provides an ideal site for studying transitions among prehistoric phases. We analyzed the strontium isotopes of various materials unearthed from the site, providing results that fill gaps in relevant data about the Boeotia area within the Sub-Pelagonian zone on the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signature map of the Aegean region. The results show that the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values of the human teeth from different phases generally fall within with the local ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr range; thus, no migrants were identified at any period, indicating the people were either all locally born or moved from a region without evident geological variations compared to the study site. The results also imply that the foraging patterns of the equids and bovines were obviously different. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values of the equids tended to be more “nonlocal” than those of most bovines. The intra-tooth variation reflected by equid individuals generally follows three main patterns, with a tendency of premortal adaption to the local dietary conditions, and some equids probably foraged somewhere outside the distribution of Karst predominant in Kopais Basin. This study also suggests that the shells were most likely collected from Kopais Lake, which possibly had a slightly lower ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr value than the present local value.
... Russian (Bazaliiskii 2005;Goriunova 1997;Kharinskii and Sosnovskaia 2000;Turkin and Kharinskii 2004 Faccia et al. 2014Faccia et al. , 2016Haverkort et al. 2008;Katzenberg et al. 2008Katzenberg et al. , 2009Katzenberg et al. , 2012Lieverse et al. 2007aLieverse et al. , 2007b, 2014a, 2014bLink 1999;Losey et al. 2008Losey et al. , 2011Losey et al. , 2012Losey et al. , 2013aLosey et al. , 2013bMooder et al. 2005Mooder et al. , 2006Moussa et al. 2016;Nomokonova et al. 2011Nomokonova et al. , 2013Nomokonova et al. , 2015Osipov et al. 2016;Scharlotta et al. 2013Scharlotta et al. , 2014Scharlotta et al. , 2016Schulting et al. 2014Schulting et al. , 2015Shepard et al. 2016;Temple et al. 2014;Waters-Rist et al. 2010Weber et al. 1998Weber et al. , 2011Weber et al. , 2013Weber et al. , 2016aWeber et al. , 2016bWhite et al. n.d.), a few monographs (Weber et al. 2007(Weber et al. , 2008(Weber et al. , 2012 ...
Ancient steppes for human equestrians
The Eurasian steppes reach from the Ukraine in Europe to Mongolia and China. Over the past 5000 years, these flat grasslands were thought to be the route for the ebb and flow of migrant humans, their horses, and their languages. de Barros Damgaard et al. probed whole-genome sequences from the remains of 74 individuals found across this region. Although there is evidence for migration into Europe from the steppes, the details of human movements are complex and involve independent acquisitions of horse cultures. Furthermore, it appears that the Indo-European Hittite language derived from Anatolia, not the steppes. The steppe people seem not to have penetrated South Asia. Genetic evidence indicates an independent history involving western Eurasian admixture into ancient South Asian peoples.
Science , this issue p. eaar7711
... The use of strontium isotope ratios ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) to reconstruct human mobility patterns is a wellestablished method and has been successfully used to reconstruct mobility of both prehistoric humans and animals at archaeological sites throughout the world (e.g. Copeland et al., 2011;Eerkens et al., 2014;Ericson, 1985;Evans et al., 2009;Hartman and Richards, 2014;Laffoon et al., 2012;Wright, 2012, Britton et al., 2011Haverkort et al., 2008;Richards et al., 2008;Oelze et al., 2012). ...
Abstract Using strontium isotope analysis, we investigated the mobility of Roman (1st to 7th century AD) and Byzantine (9th–13th century AD) individuals buried at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hierapolis, Turkey. Results from Roman and Byzantine individuals show that while the majority of the population interred at this site have local strontium isotope values, there are some individuals with values outside the local range, which we identify as migrants. This conclusion agrees in particular with the known history of pilgrimage at Hierapolis in the Byzantine period (as defined above) and with the archaeological evidence of pilgrim badges associated with human burials unearthed from recent excavations. In addition, we present the first map of bioavailable strontium in southwestern Turkey.
... Th is period is clearly one when there is evidence of broader regional interaction and possibly mobility, yet it is conspicuously absent from previous research on mobility in the steppe. Few studies use oxygen isotopes to examine mobility or locality in the central Eurasian steppe (Haverkort et al. 2008;Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling et al. 2012;Weber and Guriunova 2012). Th e research presented here is the fi rst to examine direct evidence of human mobility for this time period through analyses of enamel carbonate δ 18 O values. ...
This paper explores the utility of oxygen isotope analysis to investigate pastoral mobility in the ancient steppe.
... Mobility and migration in the Eurasian steppe has also been previously examined through stable isotopic analyses of human remains (Haverkort et al. 2008;Bernbeck et al. 2011;Lillie et al. 2012;Gerling et al. 2012;Weber and Goriunova 2013). For example, the link between mobility and culture change was investigated across several micro-regions using 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and δ 18 O isotopes (Gerling 2015) and indicated that for the nearby Altai region horses had greater mobility than humans (Bernbeck et al. 2011;Gerling 2015). ...
The role of migration and mobility of people across the steppe has often been cited as key to Bronze Age developments across Eurasia, including the emergence of complex societies in the steppe and the spread of material culture. The central Eurasian steppe (CES) is a focal point for the investigation of the shifting nature of pastoral societies because of the clear transition in archaeological patterning that occurred from the Middle (MBA) to Late Bronze Age (LBA). The spread of LBA (1700–1400 cal BC) Andronovo cultural materials found across wide swaths of the steppe provide indirect evidence for broad scale interactions, but the degree to which people moved across the landscape remains poorly understood. This study takes a first step into documenting human movement during these critical periods through strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) and oxygen (δ¹⁸O) isotopic analyses of tooth enamel recovered from human individuals buried in the cemeteries of Bestamak (MBA) and Lisakovsk (LBA) in northern Kazakhstan. Strontium isotope results, referenced against the distribution of contemporary bioavailable strontium in the vicinity of both sites, suggest local communities engaged in small-scale mobility with limited ranges. Reduced strontium and oxygen isotopic variation visible in humans from Lisakovsk suggests mobility decreased from the Middle to Late Bronze Age likely indicative of a shift in resource and landscape use over time.
... Taylor et al., 2013;Montgomery, Budd, and Evans 2000) to larger scale regional studies aimed at investigating broader social trends at the population level (e.g. Haverkort et al., 2008;Bentley et al., 2012). There has also been an increasing use of this technique to study the provenance and management strategies of archaeological fauna (Viner et al., 2010;Knipper 2011;Stephan et al., 2012). ...
Transhumance and palaeodiet are two central themes in archaeology and using chemical analysis of bones and teeth to reconstruct trends and patterns in diet and mobility has become a cornerstone of bioarchaeology. This study has investigated strontium concentration ([Sr]), radiogenic (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) and stable strontium (δ⁸⁸Sr) isotope systematics in a controlled feeding experiment on domestic pigs designed to simulate terrestrial versus marine protein consumption. The results of the radiogenic (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) analysis offer a validation of the strontium isotope methodology. The study confirms that the radiogenic strontium isotope composition of dental enamel does represent the radiogenic strontium isotope composition of the diet. The results of the δ⁸⁸Sr analysis have revealed a distinct shift of 0.322 ± 0.060 ‰ towards isotopically light Sr with trophic level. The magnitude of this shift is consistent with the predictions from the analogous shift observed in calcium isotopes. This is the first time that trophic level fractionation in δ⁸⁸Sr has been identified in a controlled setting. Although still in its infancy, δ⁸⁸Sr analysis has great potential to inform on trophic level systematics, to investigate dietary trends in early life and is potentially useful in examining diagenetic alteration.
... The sample 13 C/ 12 C ratios and C/N for most samples were measured using a EA- Delta V spectrometer system and expressed as δ 13 C with respected to VPDB with an error of less than 0.1‰. of the parent bedrock is passed from soil to groundwater, plants, and animals (Slovak et al. 2009:158). Archaeologists primarily use strontium isotope ratios to study human mobility, where significant variation in 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios among bones and teeth of the same individual, or in comparison to local 87 Sr/ 86 Sr baseline data, indicates a change in geologic environment, which is interperted as evidence of migration (Ezzo and Price 2002; Haverkort et al. 2008; Slovak et al. 2009). A limitation of this method is that is it cannot be used to discern human mobility within a geologically homogeneous region or between geologically homogeneous regions. ...
The goal of this interdisciplinary project was to examine seasonal aspects of Woodland settlement patterns and resource use on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico from the perspective of two Woodland-period archaeological sites. The sites are located on the Alabama coast near Mobile Bay. Very little research has been conducted in this area for the Woodland period even though information about life during the Woodland period offers an important perspective on coastal life during the Mississippian period which followed it. Mississippian settlement patterns and subsistence strategies were presumably very different from those in the Woodland period in terms of mobility, social organization, and the role of domesticated plants. The project specifically looked at invertebrate and vertebrate remains from Middle and Late Woodland deposits at two Gulf coast sites: Plash Island (A.D. 325-642) and Bayou St. John (A.D. 650-1041). The multi-proxy study involved zooarchaeology of invertebrates and vertebrates, as well as stable isotope geochemistry [δ18O, δ13C, δ15N, 87Sr/86Sr], laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), and bulk ICP-MS analyses of oysters, rangias, coquinas, quahogs, hardhead catfishes, and gafftopsail catfishes. Molluscs dominate the Plash Island assemblage in terms of individuals though vertebrates contribute half of the biomass; molluscs dominate the Bayou St. John assemblage in terms of both individuals and biomass. Neither assemblage is highly diverse, though the Plash Island assemblage is more diverse than the Bayou St. John assemblage both in terms of sources of individuals and sources of biomass. People at Plash Island used shellfish and fish from a wider range of trophic levels and from higher trophic levels than did people at Bayou St. John. The more diverse strategy practiced at Plash Island extended to using more venison, which was a minor resource at Bayou St. John. Although people at both locations used over 70 invertebrate and vertebrate taxa, the people at Plash Island used those animals more evenly. Compared to the strategy practiced by people at Plash Island, people at Bayou St. John were more focused on estuarine resources, particularly molluscs, a focus reflected in the lower mean trophic level and the high percentages of individuals and biomass from trophic level 2.1 in the Bayou St. John assemblage. Most of the fish individuals in both assemblages are from fishes with the potential of maturing into large-bodied fishes. Inherently small-bodied fishes contribute very little of the biomass to either assemblage. Nonetheless, at least half of the sea catfishes, mullets, and drums in both assemblages had a Standard Length below 250 mm, indicating that they were small, young fish, though some individuals were considerably larger. The preferred fishing technology at both sites was based on mass-capture methods, such as weirs and small-gauged nets, but this was more pronounced at Bayou St. John than at Plash Island. Other technologies, such as large-gauged nets, likely were used to capture the large fish individuals in both assemblages. The Plash Island assemblage contains but one animal that has a markedly seasonal migratory habit such that its presence in the assemblage indicates a season when people too were present. In this case, the cownose ray only indicates a spring through fall, which is not sufficiently specific to reconstruct human residential patterns. The Bayou St. John assemblage contains somewhat more animals with more specific seasonal migratory habits; some of these animals are present near the site during warm weather and others are present during cool weather, indicating that Bayou St. John was occupied on a multi-seasonal basis. It also suggests a preference at both sites for using animals that were present at any time of the year, and seldom using highly seasonal molluscs or fishes. Stable oxygen isotope sequences in mollusc valves and fish otoliths indicate that people were present at both sites during all four seasons. Oxygen and carbon analysis of carbonate structures indicate that average stable oxygen and carbon isotope values of individual molluscs and fishes varied by taxon as well as by site. Isotopic analyses of carbon, nitrogen, and strontium indicate that archaeological deer specimens from Plash Island and Bayou St. John are all from the local biogeographic and geologic region and do not represent a resource brought to the site from a more inland location. For comparison, similar analyses were conducted on materials from the nearby, but inland, Corps site, which had a similar isotopic signature to the coastal materials. A parsimonious interpretation of this evidence may be that some, but not all, of the residents of coastal Alabama were mobile, but most of the mobility was restricted to the coastal strand, including Mobile Bay and the Mobile-Tensaw delta. Some of this mobility may have been seasonal, but, if so, it was based on more variable and subtle behaviors of the animals used, such as the reproductive cycles of the oysters, coquinas, sea catfishes, mullets, and drums, or on factors not related to animal periodicity.
... Recent publications that have utilized the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope method in an expanded context include work byTafuri et al. (2006)who were able to identify a shift from a sedentary to a pastoral economy by identifying changes in the variance of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values over several time periods. The 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope method has also been used recently to study prehistoric hunter-gatherer adaptations (Haverkort et al., 2008). This study evaluates whether the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values in human dental enamel from the Great Hungarian Plain can be used to identify changes in how humans interacted with their environment during a time of proposed social, political and economic transformation from the Late Neolithic to the Copper Age. ...
... Recent publications that have utilized the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope method in an expanded context include work byTafuri et al. (2006)who were able to identify a shift from a sedentary to a pastoral economy by identifying changes in the variance of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values over several time periods. The 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isotope method has also been used recently to study prehistoric hunter-gatherer adaptations (Haverkort et al., 2008). This study evaluates whether the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values in human dental enamel from the Great Hungarian Plain can be used to identify changes in how humans interacted with their environment during a time of proposed social, political and economic transformation from the Late Neolithic to the Copper Age. ...
... Previous work identified two different dietsdgame-fish-seal (GFS) and game-fish (GF), and two different groups of peopledlocals and non-locals (Weber and Bettinger, 2010;Weber et al., 2011;. The diet types were identified on the basis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data and the origin of the individuals was established on the basis of strontium isotope ratios measured in first molars (Haverkort et al., 2008). It is believed that the locals were born within the geographic confines of the Little Sea and they are assumed to have spent most of their lives in this micro-region. ...
A dataset of 256 AMS radiocarbon dates on human skeletal remains from middle Holocene cemeteries in the Cis-Baikal region, Siberia, and associated carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values are analyzed for new insights about culture history and processes of culture change. First, based on the typological criteria all dated human burials are assigned to mortuary traditions and typochronological units–Late Mesolithic, Early Neolithic, Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Next, all dates are corrected for the Freshwater Reservoir Effect (FRE) according to the regression equations developed using paired radiocarbon dates on human and terrestrial faunal remains from the same graves and examined for chronological trends using a Bayesian approach. While the entire corrected culture historical sequence is younger by roughly 200–400 years relative to the previous model the shift of the specific period boundaries is not systematic due to the varying proportion of aquatic food in the diets of the relevant groups. Examination of the dataset subdivided into smaller spatio-temporal units provides additional insights. During the Early Neolithic, in the Angara and Southwest Baikal micro-regions there is a chronological trend toward increased reliance on aquatic food. During the Early Bronze Age in the Little Sea micro-region, there appears to be a trend toward increased reliance on the Baikal seal. This shift, however, can also be interpreted as increasing migration over time of new groups from the Upper Lena. The sample from the Early Neolithic Shamanka II cemetery in Southwest Baikal shows two non-abutting phases of use each displaying a trend toward greater consumption of aquatic foods. These findings provide new chronological framework for the study of other cultural changes affecting middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the region. The results may also allow better correlation with other sequences, cultural and environmental, that are not affected by the FRE.
Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers (HG) of the Cis-Baikal, Eastern Siberia, display substantial spatiotemporal variation in adaptive strategies highlighted by several cultural transitions. These transitions are examined focusing on the role of the following factors: (1) changes in the distribution of the boreal forest; (2) technological innovations; (3) intensification of fishing; and (4) their combined impacts on subsistence and social structure. The expansion and retreat of boreal forest was important because it directly affected the distribution and abundance of large and medium terrestrial game, the core of subsistence for all Middle Holocene HG in the region. All other things being equal, expanding forests meant less game while shrinking forest meant more game and more living space for HG. The bow was crucial not only due to its technological superiority over the spear and atlatl as a game hunting weapon but also because its flexibility allowed it to work equally well for groups of any size and in any environment – forest or steppe. The much higher return rates associated with bow hunting freed enough labour to be allocated to other activities such as the intensification of fishing. Fishing and fisheries were important because they worked as a differentiating force: the more intensive the fishing, the more limited its spatial distribution and the greater the micro-regional differences between cultural patterns. Intensive fishing and game hunting pulled the adaptive strategies in two opposing directions: fishing towards differences and hunting towards similarities between groups and micro-regions. Social relations were important because they fine-tuned the social fabric to optimize the general strategy. Together, these factors account for all cultural transitions and variation documented for the Middle Holocene HG of Cis-Baikal: Transition 1 – formation of the Late Mesolithic cultural pattern with incipient formal cemeteries ~8630 cal BP; Transition 2 – replacement of the Late Mesolithic system on the Angara and in Southwest Baikal, but not in the Little Sea or on the Upper Lena, by the Early Neolithic Kitoi pattern with its very large cemeteries ~7560 cal BP; Transition 3 – collapse of the Kitoi by ~6660 cal BP followed by the formation of the Middle Neolithic pattern with no cemeteries; Transition 4 – reappearance of cemeteries ~6060 cal BP and the establishment of the Late Neolithic pattern; Transition 5 – formation of the Early Bronze Age system ~4970 cal BP; and lastly, Transition 6 – the end of the Early Bronze Age socio-economic pattern by ~3470 cal BP.
Analytical Archaeometry describes this interesting and challenging field of research - on the border between natural sciences (chemistry, spectroscopy, biology, geology) and humanities (archaeology, (art-)history, conservation sciences). It fills the gap between these two areas whilst focussing on the analytical aspects of this research field. The first part of the book studies the main analytical techniques used in this research field. The second part expands from the different types of materials usually encountered, and the final part is organised around a series of typical research questions. The book is not only focussed on archaeological materials, but is also accessible to a broader lay audience. Overall the book is clearly structured and gives insight into different approaches to the study of analytical providing extensive discussion on a wide range of techniques, materials, questions and applications. Due to the advances in analytical instrumentation and applications in this field, it is important to have all this information merged together. Academics as well as professionals in archaeology, art history, museum labs and conservation science will find this an invaluable reference source ensuring the reader is provided with the latest progress in this research field.
Trace elements, including the toxic trace metal of lead (Pb), have both the potential to provide valuable insights into past human lifeways, as well as a strong affinity for bone and dental tissues, making the analysis of them potentially useful to bioarchaeology. However, trace element analysis of archaeological skeletal remains is constantly hindered by diagenesis, the post-mortem chemical, physical, and biological transformations of skeletal remains, as these processes can interfere with the biogenic (lifetime) chemical composition of bone and teeth. New approaches may aid in overcoming some of these limitations. Synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence imaging (SR-XFI) can generate maps of trace metals, including Pb, in bone on a microstructural scale, and it has been proposed that this could be used to distinguish biogenic from diagenetic Pb exposure and provide insights into the individual life histories of Pb exposure. Recent technological improvements in SR-XFI, particularly the use of confocal optics, has permitted higher spatial resolution in element maps and optical, rather than physical, sectioning of fragile archaeological bone samples. The aim of this thesis was to experimentally test whether there are spatial differences in the distribution of Pb for diagenetic and biogenic modes of uptake in bone, and evaluate individual life histories of biogenic Pb exposure in a cadaveric population sampled from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. To address these aims, this study used inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and SR-XFI on bone samples from eighteenth to nineteenth century archaeological sites from Antigua and Lithuania representing biogenic and diagenetic Pb exposure, respectively, and experimentally altered modern bone samples donated to the Body Bequeathal Program (University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK). Pb concentrations in the cadaveric bone ranged from 1.2 to 7.1 µg/g. By contrast, the bulk Pb concentration of the Antigua sample was 253.94 µg/g and the bulk Pb concentration of the Lithuania individual was 125 µg/g. SR-XFI results demonstrated that there are marked differences in the spatial distribution of Pb corresponding to biogenic versus diagenetic uptake for both archaeological and experimentally altered modern samples. The modern Saskatchewan sample demonstrated a pattern of relatively low Pb exposure with higher levels of Pb exposure occurring in mature bone structures that formed earlier in life, likely during the era of leaded gasoline (pre-1980s).
Mounting evidence suggests that the Archaic Southeast shell mound builders had large‐scale trade networks and engaged in social aggregations. Here incremental 87Sr/86Sr values via LA‐ICP‐MS were measured in 3rd molar enamel samples of eleven individuals interred in the Middle Archaic Harris Creek shell burial mound, St. John's River Valley (SJRV), Florida. Results revealed that SJRV residents engaged in short‐term long‐distance mobility up to the Piedmont margin and excursions into coastal areas, consistent with direct trading and social gatherings. Two individuals are interpreted as migrants from central Tennessee, suggesting a link to the Ohio River Valley shell mound builders.
This represents one of several sections of "A Bibliography Related to Crime Scene Interpretation with Emphases in Geotaphonomic and Forensic Archaeological Field Techniques, Nineteenth Edition" (The complete bibliography is also included at ResearchGate.net.). This is the most recent edition of a bibliography containing resources for multiple areas of crime scene, and particularly outdoor crime scene, investigations. It replaces the prior edition and contains approximately 10,000 additional citations. As an ongoing project, additional references, as encountered, will be added to future editions.
Popular and scientific references to the use of stable isotopes in identifying skeletal remains; or, more accurately, identifying geographical ranges in which the decedent may have lived, are the focus of this section. It also includes topics such as Carbon 14 dating and bomb pulse data. Stable isotope analyses may provide investigators clues to the spatial history of unidentified victims. Our bones and teeth, throughout our lives become reservoirs for those chemical elements to which we are exposed. The longer those exposures to the varied concentrations of different elements in different areas of the world, the more likely the victim can be determined as having resided in a particular area. By knowing the areas inhabited by a victim, the more likely investigators will be able to track down his, or her, identity. Unlike radioactive isotopes, stable isotopes never disintegrate. Schwarz, (2007), provides a good example of the forensic value of stable isotopes:
"Most of the O atoms in our body come from the water we drink, and is usually isotopically like the precipitation where we live. Therefore, we can often learn where a person lived from the isotopic composition of their teeth and bones. Fortunately, we now have maps showing the distribution of 18O/16O ratios in precipitation falling over North America and Europe which we can use to help trace the place of origin of a murder victim. Even burned remains can be analyzed this way."
(Schwarz, 2007:28)
Like DNA, stable isotope analyses will continue to be developed and be refined. And like DNA analyses, it may someday be a staple in the forensic scientist's toolbox.
Because stable isotope analysis is so dependent on the proper collection of known environmental samples, the researcher is also referred to the section Geoarchaeology and Soil Science. Our culture obviously impacts and reflects where we live and what we consume. For those reasons, the researcher may find useful citations in the section entitled Criminal and Cultural Behavior. That said, crime scene investigators should also remember that other animal species and plant life associated with crime scenes, also reflect stable isotope signatures which may aid in reconstructing crime scene events.
(2076 citations)
The mineral portion of bone is largely made up of hydroxyapatite but includes minor substitutions which act as natural tracers of the diet and environment. One such substitution is strontium, which may replace calcium in trace quantities in bone and tooth enamel and dentin. The isotopes of strontium reflect ingested environmental strontium isotopes where an organism was living at the time the tissue formed. This principle is used to explore migration and residence in past human groups. Methods of analysis and confounding factors are described along with examples of migration studies from regions such as the American Southwest and Northern Europe.
Biogeochemical reconstructions of life histories of mobility offer a means to obtain nuanced information about regional interactions in the past. We test this method using the Late Intermediate Period Ychsma society on the central Peruvian coast as a case study. Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence indicates that the Rimac and Lurín Valleys inhabited by the Ychsma served as a key regional hub for the religious and administrative activities of the Inca Empire and the Spanish Viceroyalty. The nature of regional interactions prior to Inca imperial influence, however, remains unclear. Well-known historical narratives describe populations from the adjacent Huarochirí highlands defeating coastal Ychsma populations for agricultural land, but archaeological evidence concerning the timing and extent of coastal-highland interactions is debated. Here, we assess the potential for radiogenic strontium and stable oxygen isotopic reconstruction of mobility over the life course to shed light on the regional interactions of coastal Ychsma groups during the Late Intermediate Period. We present ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O results for 61 regional environmental baseline samples and archaeological human tooth enamel and bone samples from 64 individuals buried at Armatambo and Rinconada Alta, in the Rimac Valley. Results reveal a broad isotopic range for baseline and archaeological samples likely due to diversity in water and bedrock sources. Nevertheless, one individual presents a non-local strontium value indicating mobility to an outside region. We discuss the advantages of a life history approach, the complications of using isotopes to assess mobility in the Central Andes, and suggested directions for future research.
We provide a multi-scalar investigation of interactions among hunter-gatherers in the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia during the transition to the Bronze Age (4900–3700 cal BP). We review and synthesize published data on burial goods and isotopic variation to reconstruct interconnections that existed both within and between hunter-gatherer groups inhabiting the Cis-Baikal's distinct micro-regions, as well as macro-regional interconnections between the Cis-Baikal and neighboring regions of Eurasia. While an extensive body of English-language literature has recently been published on the prehistory of the Cis-Baikal, this literature does not address patterning in the archaeological record at the macro-regional scale. The data we discuss here suggest that by the Bronze Age, Cis-Baikal hunter-gatherers shared several of the hallmark developments that characterized the Bronze Age of the Eurasian Steppe. We attempt to situate the Cis-Baikal within its broader geographic and historical context, and suggest that despite the absence of food production (e.g., herding) in the region at this time, local hunter-gatherers’ mobility practices – involving seasonal movement and periodic aggregation – enabled these groups to participate in networks of interaction that developed throughout the larger region in the Bronze Age.
A new procedure is described in which combined lead and strontium isotope analysis of archaeological human dental tissues can be used to comment on the lifetime movements of individuals. A case study is presented of four Neolithic burials – an adult female and three juveniles – from a shared burial pit excavated at Monkton-up-Wimbourne, Dorset. It is demonstrated that the adult's place of origin was at least 80km to the north-west in the area of the Mendips. It is also shown that all three juveniles moved over significant distances during their lives.
Strontium isotope analysis is applied in South America for the first time in order to investigate residential mobility and mortuary ritual from ad 500 to 1000. While Tiwanaku-style artefacts are spread throughout Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile during this time, the nature of Tiwanaku influence in the region is much debated. Human skeletal remains from the site of Tiwanaku and the proposed Tiwanaku colony of Chen Chen have been analysed to test the hypothesis that Tiwanaku colonies, populated with inhabitants from Tiwanaku, existed in Peru. Strontium isotope analysis supports this hypothesis by demonstrating that non-local individuals are present at both sites.
Strontium isotope analysis of archaeological skeletons has provided useful and exciting results in archaeology in the last 20 years, particularly by characterizing past human migration and mobility. This review covers the biogeochemical background, including the origin of strontium isotope compositions in rocks, weathering and hydrologic cycles that transport strontium, and biopurification of strontium from to soils, to plants, to animals and finally into the human skeleton, which is subject to diagenesis after burial. Spatial heterogeneity and mixing relations must often be accounted for, rather than simply ``matching'' a measured strontium isotope value to a presumed single-valued geologic source. The successes, limitations and future potential of the strontium isotope technique are illustrated through case studies from geochemistry, biogeochemistry, ecology and archaeology.
Measurement of strontium isotopes in archaeological skeletons is an effective technique for characterizing prehistoric mobility. However, interpretation of the results can be highly sensitive to small changes in the determined ‘local’ 87Sr/86Sr signature at an archaeological site. Because the local range is often defined as within 2 s.d. from the mean 87Sr/86Sr value in archaeological human bones, the susceptibility of bones to diagenesis may lead to significant overestimates in the number of ‘non-locals’ at a particular site. Tooth enamel, on the other hand, is highly resistant to postmortem biochemical alteration, and it is found that 87Sr/86Sr in archaeological enamel samples from animals of Neolithic Germany provide a useful alternative estimate for the local range.
The origins and development of pastoralism in Saharan North Africa involves societies and economies that, subjected to profound climatic changes and progressive desertification, came to be based on the movement of people and resources. The extreme conditions to which these groups were subjected made mobility a ‘resource’ in itself. Through the first analysis of Sr isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) in dental enamel of human skeletons from prehistoric burials of the Fezzan (southwestern Libya), we begin to investigate how mobility patterns changed with the onset of the desert. In combining our results with the archaeological evidence, we find that, the transformation in the economy of prehistoric groups correlated with a shift in mobility and possibly kinship systems.
Teotihuacan, in highland Mexico, is the earliest and largest prehispanic city in the New World, occupied primarily between 1 and 650. There are many distinctive areas within the city limits, including major ceremonial precincts, large pyramids and temples, residential areas, exchange sectors, thousands of residential compounds, and tunnels under the northern half of the city. Some of these residential compounds contain non-local architecture, artefacts, and burial arrangements known from areas on the Gulf Coast and in Oaxaca. The identity of the residents of these “foreign” compounds is uncertain. Were these local individuals adopting foreign customs, recent immigrants to the city, or a mix of locals and outsiders? After the fall of Teotihuacan, people with Coyotlatelco culture came to the city and contributed to its extensive looting. Some scholars have proposed a northern or western origin for these groups.We have measured the strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) in human bone and tooth enamel from individuals buried in various areas of the city for information on their original place of birth. Strontium isotope ratios are signatures for local geologies. Strontium in human bone and tooth enamel comes from the food growing in local geologies. Strontium isotope ratios in human bone reflect the source of a diet around the time of death; ratios in tooth enamel reflect the source of the diet around the time of birth. Differences between enamel and bone ratios in the same individual indicate differences in local geologies and thus a change in residence. Our study indicates that a number of the individuals were born outside the city. Comparison with other isotopic methods for assessing residential change is also made.
Since the late 1980s, radiocarbon dating has played an increasingly important role in research on Middle Holocene culture history in Cis-Baikal. Previous efforts to develop a chronology for Cis-Baikal Neolithic hunter-gatherer mortuary traditions revealed the general antiquity of the Kitoi, a discontinuity between traditions in the Middle Holocene, and ambiguity with respect to the chronological relationship between the Isakovo-Serovo and Glazkovo traditions (Gerasimov 1955; Konopatskii 1982; Mamonova and Sulerzhitskii 1989; Weber 1995). A number of dates appeared to suggest quite substantial temporal overlap between these traditions rather than the chronological abutment of successive groups as previously assumed. Subsequent research not only confirmed the notion of a major temporal discontinuity between the Kitoi and Isakovo-Serovo, but it also suggested that the groups on either side of the gap (hiatus) in the mortuary record differed from each other in terms of diet and health, subsistence and mobility, social organization and demographic structure, as well as world views and mortuary ritual. Our previous culture history model to be assessed and revised here is presented in Table 2.1. With the extensive radiocarbon dating undertaken recently by the Baikal Archaeology Project and by Russian scholars, there is now a set of 488 dates representing 41 cemeteries available for analysis (Table 2.2 and also Table 2.3 on DVD). Our data set consists of 335 BAP dates processed in the IsoTrace Laboratory, University of Toronto, and an additional 153 determinations generated in several Russian dating facilities. All BAP dates were derived from human bone samples from mortuary sites, thus they provide direct evidence for each individual and information on the length of time each cemetery was used. Ultimately, all of the information for each individual (date, demographic profile, (Table presented) diet, mobility, and pathology) may be combined to create individual life histories. One advantage of using 14C determinations derived from human bone is that the dates directly relate to specific past events, namely the lives of particular individuals buried in Middle Holocene graves in Cis-Baikal. As such, these dates are particularly meaningful not only from the perspective of culture historical studies, but also for analyses employing other approaches designed to elucidate an individual's life history (e.g., stable isotope analysis for examination of diet and mobility, DNA for examination of genetic affiliations). To ensure compatibility with the BAP dates, in this chapter the Russian data set has been limited exclusively to dates obtained from samples of human bones collected from similar archaeological contexts. Consequently, a number of Russian determinations that utilized other organic substances such as charcoal, wood, or birch bark were left out of this study. Although these other dates also represent mortuary contexts, association of the dated material with the life of the interred person is at best indirect. (Table Presented) Despite the fact that all BAP and Russian dates examined in this chapter were derived from human bone from mortuary contexts, the two data sets differ in some important respects. First, all BAP dates are particle-counting determinations using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and all Russian dates employed the decay-counting technique. In addition, the BAP set is biased toward large cemeteries. In a few cemeteries, almost every burial was dated. For example, we have 95 BAP dates for the Lokomotiv cemetery, 85 for Khuzhir-Nuge XIV, and 64 for Ust'-Ida I (Table 2.2). The Russian dates, (Figure Presented) (Table Presented) in contrast, represent a greater variety of mortuary sites, although the number of dates available for any one site is generally small. More specifically, there are 11 dates for the Verkholensk cemetery, 16 for Shumilikha, 12 for the Sarminskii Mys, and about two dozen sites with only one or two dates. The geographic distribution of the cemeteries dated in the Russian laboratories is broader compared to the sites represented by BAP dates (Fig. 2.1). In this regard, the two data sets complement each other quite well. (Table Presented) The entire body of 335 BAP dates has been reported recently in Radiocarbon (Weber et al. 2006). Most of the 153 Russian dates have been obtained from original publications and the post-hiatus subset was also examined during our recent analysis of the radiocarbon data from the Khuzhir-Nuge XIV cemetery (Weber et al. 2005). Several of the post-hiatus dates were obtained directly from Ms. N. N. Mamonova (Moscow) and published for the first time in this latter paper. For convenience, all 488 radiocarbon dates used in the current study are listed in Table 2.3.© 2010 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.
Among the issues current in Middle Holocene boreal forest archaeology in eastern Siberia over the past ten years are comparative hunter-gatherer social complexity and the existence of a gap in the human occupation record during most of the seventh millennium BP. To address these issues, well-preserved human remains from two major Cis-Baikal hunter-gatherer cemeteries that date from either side of the gap were analyzed. While both populations possessed good community health, demographic and paleopathological profiles suggest that cultural factors, including weaning age, birth spacing, and gender-based differentiation, may have played a role in pregap population decline and postgap population increase. Environmental factors were probably not prime movers in culture change. The data imply that the pregap group's demise was a result of inflexible cultural practices with which a small, mobile population could not succeed. Their very 'complexity' may have been their downfall. Postgap people flourished with their more flexible, more equitable, and possibly 'simpler' social system. These results are viewed in light of the ongoing debate on variability in hunter-gatherer social systems.
Stable-isotopic analyses of human bone, now an established aid to dietary reconstruction in archaeology, represent the diet as averaged over many years. Separate analysis of different skeletal components enables changes in diet and place of residence to be tracked, giving a fuller life-history for long-dead individuals.
Strontium isotopes can be used as biogeochemical tracers in the study of human and animal ecology. Strontium isotopes are characteristic of the local geology, and they pass through the food chain with significant fractionation. The local geology can be characterized by strontium isotope analysis (reported as a simple ratio of isotope abundances) of the soils and plants that form the catchment or home range of the species under study. Soil (Dasch 1969) and plants (Hurst and Davis 1981) are in isotopic equilibrium with local source rock and share similar isotopic ratios for strontium. Dietary strontium is incorporated in tissues and stored for different periods of time depending on the strontium turnover rates of the specific tissues. Accordingly, strontium isotope analysis of permanent teeth, gut contents, and muscle and bone tissues, all having different turnover rates, may provide important data in studying animal migration and local movement, particularly if animals move between regions with heterogeneous geology.
This reference work is an attempt to provide an integrated and reasonably comprehensive treatnient of pathological conditions that affect the human skeleton. The primary objective is to assist those who conduct research on archeological skeletal remains in interpreting abnormal conditions that they might encounter in the course of their research. However, there is much that ancient skeletal remains can reveal to the modern medical historian, orthopaedist, pathologist, and radiologist about skeletal diseases that are rarely encountered in modern clinical practice. All of the major categories of disease that affect bone are reviewed from the viewpoint of the pathologist. This review is followed by a discussion of the literature on the paleopathology of each condition and the presentation of paleopathological cases thought to represent each of the morbid categories affecting bone. This work is based on extensive individual and collaborative research by both authors on the known parameters of modern skeletal diseases and their expression in antiquity. The monograph provides essential text and illustrative materials on bone pathology, which will improve the diagnostic ability of those interested in human dry bone pathology.
Strontium isotope ratios and strontium concentrations in bone and tooth enamel are used to investigate patterns of residential mobility and migration in the late prehistoric (14th century) period in the mountain province of east-central Arizona. This area is of interest because of significant questions concerning the movement of people into and within the region and because of the number of late prehistoric sites with well-studied burial populations. Grasshopper Pueblo is the main focus of analysis, with additional information from the site of Walnut Creek.A pilot strontium isotope study of bone and tooth enamel of first molars from the Grasshopper and Walnut Creek regions has demonstrated intriguing variability in strontium isotope compositions of human samples and indicates a significant probability of the success of the investigations proposed here. This initial work indicates that there are measurable and meaningful differences between bones and tooth enamel from the same individuals, among individuals from the same site, and between communities in the study area.
A data set of 87 radiocarbon determinations obtained for the Bronze Age Khuzhir-Nuge XIV cemetery in the Cis-Baikal region of Siberia is analyzed from the perspective of data quality and within the local archaeological context. Bone preservation, expressed in terms of collagen yields, is a very important factor affecting both the accuracy and precision of 14C dates and, therefore, publication of this information should be adopted as a required standard. According to the calibrated high-collagen dates, after a single Serovo interment the cemetery was used continuously by Glazkovo peoples for up to 700years (∼2700–2000BC), and 70% of all burials were interred within a relatively short peak period between approximately 2500 and 2300BC. The extensive radiocarbon data from KN XIV allow for the re-evaluation of existing models and perspectives on the place of the Glazkovo culture within the Cis-Baikal Neolithic and Bronze Age.
The Bell Beaker period, appearing at the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age, and dating from approximately 2500-1900 BC, is named after a distinctively shaped ceramic vessel, probably a drinking cup. A technique is described in this study for directly examining questions of prehistoric residential change, using strontium isotope ratios in human bone and tooth enamel. Differences in these ratios in the same individual indicate migration. Results from a study of Bell Beaker burials in Bavaria suggest that both human mobility in the Bell Beaker period and the potential of strontium isotope analysis are high.
Strontium isotope analysis of the tooth enamel of 69 adults from Grasshopper Pueblo reveals aspects of the settlement of and immigration to the area during the late 13th and 14th centuries. Depending on the range of local strontium isotope compositions, non-local residents vary from one-third to more than half of the individuals analysed. Based on associated archaeological evidence, it is likely that the latter figure is more accurate. The majority of locals are associated with Room Block 2 and the Great Kiva. Individuals associated with Room Blocks 1 and 3 tend to be immigrant, and this is also the case of the two individuals analysed from Room Block 5, a room block which has been thought to represent an immigration to the site. There are both locals and immigrants in the outliers, and the temporal data indicates that immigration continued throughout the occupation of the pueblo. Immigrants originate largely from two geologic areas: those underlain by Precambrian rocks located to the west and south of Grasshopper, or from areas underlain by Phanerozoic sedimentary rocks to the north and immediately east of Grasshopper. Ten individuals buried with diagnostic artefacts were analysed in the sample, and they represent both local and non-local origins, supporting earlier notions that the diagnostic artefacts symbolized sodalities which cross-cut ethnic and social boundaries.
In their comment, Peter Horn and Dieter Muller-Sohnius agreed with the authors' methodological approach (Grupe et al., 1997) to the reconstruction of mobility in prehistory in general, however, they have major objections against sample preparation, data handling and interpretation. We thank the editor of Applied Geochemistry for giving us the opportunity to reply to these comments, which while partly very useful, are however, mainly not justified. The conclusion by Horn and Muller-Sohnius that the samples analyzed do not belong to the same statistical population is correct, and their advice to treat every burial site individually is greatly acknowledged. Moreover, the samples analyzed by the present authors may not even belong to the same population in the demographic sense, because of a lack of Bell Beaker settlements and larger burial sites. This fact on the one hand puts certain constraints on our study, but was on the other hand the prerequisite for the problem arising about the Beaker folk which the authors tried to help solve by an archaeometric approach: to shed light on the exceptional 'Bell Beaker phenomenon'.
Boreal forest hunter-gatherers who lived in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia between 9000 and 3000 years ago left behind a rich record of mortuary and habitation sites. In this article, we employ the results of human osteological, stable isotope, and faunal analyses to formulate an hypothesis about discontinuity in the development of Cis-Baikal hunter-gatherers. These data are further used to arrive at more specific working hypotheses on contrasting subsistence, mobility, and social interaction patterns of the two cultures that inhabited the region at different times. We then provide a new model of culture change and continuity that features an intriguing 700-800-year gap between these two groups' records of occupation within a context of practically no environmental change.
Strontium isotope analysis of bone and tooth enamel from prehistoric human skeletons is an important new technique used to address questions regarding migration. Two problems arise in such investigations: (1) levels of strontium isotope ratios in local bedrock, soil, water, plants and animals are variable; and (2) a range of values in human bone and enamel data make it difficult to distinguish some migrants from locals. Analysis of the bones of small animals provides a robust measure of local strontium isotope ratios and a reliable, if conservative, means for determining confidence limits for distinguishing migrants. Data from various geographical areas are presented here in a discussion of variability in strontium isotope values. Examples are provided using modern and prehistoric materials. We conclude with the recommendation that studies involving strontium isotope analysis should incorporate small animal samples for comparative purposes whenever possible.
In order to interpret strontium and oxygen isotope values in Neolithic human skeletons analysed previously, we begin to map the biologically available strontium, carbon and oxygen isotopic signatures of prehistoric southern Germany by analysing tooth enamel of pigs from archaeological sites distributed around the region. The mapping shows a marked upland–lowland difference in biologically available87Sr/86Sr values, ranging between 0.7086 and 0.7103 in the sedimentary lowlands, and from 0.710 to as high as 0.722 in the crystalline uplands of the Odenwald, the Black Forest and the Bavarian Forest. In addition, carbon isotopes in the carbonate fraction of pig enamel were generally about 1–2 more enriched in13C in the uplands. Despite the expected depletion of18O with altitude, oxygen isotopes in pig enamel showed little correlation with site altitude, although for pig samples not older than the Iron Age there was some geographical correlation withδ18O patterns in modern precipitation.
As evidence concerning human mobility during the transition to agriculture in central Europe, we present the results of strontium isotope analysis of human skeletons from the Neolithic village of Vaihingen, Germany. We find significantly more ‘non-local’87Sr/86Sr values from humans buried in a Neolithic ditch surrounding Vaihingen than from those buried within the settlement. These results fit with previous studies showing a correlation between burial circumstances and strontium isotope signatures from LBK cemeteries of southwestern Germany (Price et al. 2001; Bentley et al. 2002). A pilot study of Neolithic animal teeth from Vaihingen suggests that either ‘local’87Sr/86Sr signatures were more variable than the analysed human bones suggest, or that these domestic animals themselves were mobile, perhaps ranged by mobile pastoralists.
Rich settlement and burial evidence from the Baikal/Angara region in Central Siberia provides one of the most promising opportunities in the global boreal forest for studying Holocene foragers. The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age prehistory of the region is known to western scholars only through a few English translations of the works of A. P. Okladnikov. Since the publication of Okladnikov's model, the region has witnessed large-scale archaeological fieldwork that has produced abundant quantities of new evidence. Moreover, the model has been partly invalidated by extensive radiocarbon dating. Research advances over the last couple of decades have augmented the area's previous reputation but have also revealed the need for new theoretical perspectives and modern analytical techniques.
Strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) in human bones and teeth have become a useful tool to study migration and sedentism of individuals from archaeological contexts. Here we analyzed 87Sr/86Sr of water, bedrock, soils, and plants across a broad geographic region to test the potential of this method in the ancient Maya area. Our aims were two-fold: first to test if the sources of dietary strontium (i.e., plants and water) in humans reflect the 87Sr/86Sr ratio of exposed bedrock, and second, to determine whether the ranges of 87Sr/86Sr values were sufficiently distinct among the principal Maya geocultural areas to infer past migration. We identified five distinct subregions on the basis of geologic maps and evaluated the variability of 87Sr/86Sr values (values given as mean 87Sr/86Sr ±2 standard deviations; number of samples): (1) Northern Lowlands (0.70888±0.00066; n=16); (2) Southern Lowlands (0.70770±0.00052; n=86); (3) Volcanic Highlands and Pacific Coast (0.70415±0.00023; n=34); (4) Metamorphic Province (0.70743±0.00572; n=50); and (5) the Maya Mountains of Belize (0.71327±0.00167; n=3). Although the sample size is small and overlap exists in 87Sr/86Sr values among some subregions, most areas can be readily distinguished from one another on the basis of strontium isotopes. These subregional 87Sr/86Sr differences provide archaeologists with a powerful tool to recognize geographic “outliers” in ancient Maya burials and thereby test hypotheses concerning the origin of specific individuals, inferred population migration patterns, and the possibility of outside cultural influences in the Maya region.
Residence patterns provide keys to social structure, information flow, and patterns of material culture. A biogeochemical model has been formulated—using tooth eruption sequence, elemental exchange rates in bone tissue, and the geochemistry of strontium isotopes—to examine patterns of human residence in the past. Strontium isotopes, characteristic of local geology, pass unmodified through the food chain. isotopic values of human second molar teeth, representative of the individual from ages six to twelve, and bone, representative of the last six years of life, characterize the food chain of pre-marital and marital residences respectively. Marriage residence patterns are determined by stratifying age/sex data. The biogeochemical model and preliminary results are presented for two sites in California.
The response of continental weathering rates to changing climate and atmospheric PCO2 is of considerable importance both to the interpretation of the geological sedimentary record and to predictions of the effects of future anthropogenic influences. While comprehensive work on the controlling mechanisms of contemporary chemical and mechanical weathering has been carried out in the tropics and, to a lesser extent, in the strongly perturbed northern temperate latitudes, very little is known about the peri-glacial environments in the subarctic and arctic. Thus, the effects of climate, essentially temperature and runoff, on the rates of atmospheric CO2 consumption by weathering are not well quantified at this climatic extreme. To remedy this lack a comprehensive survey has been carried out of the geochemistry of the large rivers of Eastern Siberia, the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, Anadyr, and numerous lesser streams which drain a pristine, high-latitude region that has not experienced the pervasive effects of glaciation and subsequent anthropogenic impacts common to western Eurasia and North America.The scale of the terrain sampled, in terms of area, is comparable to that of the continental United States or the Amazon/Orinoco and includes a similarly diverse range of geologic and climatic environments. In this paper the chemical fluxes from the western region, the very large, ancient, and geologically stable sedimentary basin, Precambrian to Quaternary, of the Siberian Platform will be presented and compared to published results from analogous terrains in the tropical basins of China. While the range in the chemical signatures of the various tributaries included here (∼60 sampled) is large, this mainly reflects lithology rather than the weathering environment. The areal chemical fluxes are comparable to those of the Chinese rivers, being dominated by the dissolution of carbonates and evaporites. The net consumption of atmospheric CO2 by aluminosilicate weathering is minor, as it is in the tropical basins. It is much smaller than in active orogenic belts in similar latitudes, e.g., the Fraser and Yukon, but comparable to those of the Mackenzie tributaries that drain the eastern slope of the Rockies. Lithology exerts the dominant influence in determining the weathering yield from sedimentary terrains, and for a largely carbonate/evaporite terrain climate does not have a direct effect.
After the Romans had left their former province “Raetia II” (today southern Bavaria) in AD 488, the hitherto unknown tribe of “baiovarii” (Bavarians) was first recorded in AD 551. Current archaeological theory claims that this tribe was founded by native Celts, Roman populations, and Germanic mercenaries previously recruited by the Roman military. The geochemical diversity of Bavaria permits the application of Sr isotope analyses for the reconstruction of migration events. Analysis of tooth/bone pairs of 70 individuals from a burial site associated with a Roman fortress revealed that 30% of the dead were primarily non-local to the Roman province but originated from north-eastern areas. A relatively higher number of female immigrants was identified which is best explained by exogamy. Serial analyses of complete dentitions revealed that several males had entered the province as small children and thus cannot have been recruited mercenaries. Such a definition of the ontogenetic stage of an individual at the time of its residence change offers new perspectives for the evaluation of migration events in the past.
Human and non-human faunal bone from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods of Cis-Baikal were analysed for stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in order to study regional and temporal variation in diet and subsistence. Both prehistoric and modern faunal species were analysed with all fish from the modern context. Results indicate that regional variation is greater than temporal variation and can be attributed to proximity to Lake Baikal and its rich aquatic resources. Stable isotope analyses of fish and seals from Lake Baikal indicate a wide range of variation in isotope values. δ15N values for the freshwater seals of Lake Baikal average 14 ± 1·1 per mil. Freshwater fish are highly variable in the δ13C values ranging from − 24·6 per mil for the pelagic omul (Coregonus autumnalis migratorius) to − 12·9 per mil for littoral species such as ide (Leuciscus idus). Terrestrial herbivores have much lower δ15N values, ranging from 4 to 5 per mil for deer and elk. These data demonstrate that even in temperate, inland regions, there is sufficient variation in stable isotope values of various food resources to provide useful information about variation in human palaeodiet.
Strontium-isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of first-molar enamel of 70 adult individuals interred at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona, when coupled with a variety of other lines of evidence, reveal a complex pattern of immigration and settlement at the site. Thirty-three of the individuals pattern as local (most likely having been born at Grasshopper), and 13 others originate from the region immediately surrounding the site. The remaining 24 individuals are of non-local, extra-regional origin. Recent 87Sr/86Sr analysis of rodent bone from archaeological sites in several regions surrounding Grasshopper—including the Tonto Basin, Payson area, Mogollon Rim, and Chevelon Valley, as well as prehistoric human bone from the Walnut Creek/Cherry Creek region—reveal potential matches for all of the nonlocal individuals. It is suggests that immigrants at Grasshopper likely derived from the Chevelon Valley, at least two localities from the central Mogollon Rim region, and possibly the Payson area at the western edge of the Mogollon Rim. Migration occurred throughout the occupational history of the site, but patterns of migration clearly changed through time. The structure of migrations likely followed the internal frontier model of Kopytoff (1987). A number of inferences that have been postulated for Grasshopper regarding ethnicity, diversity, and social and community organization are evaluated and supported.
Fishing was the foundation for many of the world's foraging peoples and was undertaken using a variety of technologies. Reconstructing fishing technologies can be difficult because these tools were often made of perishable materials. Here we explore fishing technologies employed at the Ityrkhei site on Lake Baikal, Siberia. Specifically, we employ regression analyses to reconstruct the sizes of perch (Perca fluviatilis) captured through time at the site. Our analyses demonstrate that almost no juvenile perch were taken, suggesting some selectivity in harvest. We suggest this selectivity is most consistent with the use of relatively large gauge nets or traps. Such mass harvesting technologies may have been important elements of the subsistence economies of Lake Baikal's foraging peoples throughout much of the Holocene.
In order to contribute to the continuing discussion of the mobility of the late neolithic Bell Beaker people, 69 skeletons from southern Bavaria were analyzed for the 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios in tooth enamel and compact bone. Whereas Sr isotope ratios in the enamel of the first permanent molar match the Sr isotopic composition at the place of early childhood, the respective value in the adult femoral bone matches the Sr isotope ratio characteristic of the place of residence over the last few years prior to death. Significant differences between 87Sr/86Sr in these tissues indicate that 17.5–25% of these individuals changed residence during their lifetime. The overall direction of the migration, according to archaeological finds from the area, was toward the southwest. A relative surplus of migrating females and two cases of evidence for migration in children argue for the movement of small groups; exogamy might explain the higher numbers of immigrating females. With regard to current information on migration rates in prehistory, the southern Bavarian Bell Beaker people were indeed highly mobile, especially since the archaeometric method used in this study is likely to underestimate movement.
This paper presents the results of a pilot study concerning residential patterns in the Bell Beaker period in the Bavarian area. Under the assumption that stable strontium isotope ratios in mineralized tissue reflect the geology of the area where the investigated individual had lived, we analysed the87Sr/86Sr ratios in human skeletal remains which had been formed at different ontogenetic periods (compact bone and tooth enamel).87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios of compact bone from eight healthy adults from two archaeological sites average 0.708461 which is typical for the local geology. Enamel of the first permanent molar of three individuals differed significantly from their bone's isotopic ratio, the largest difference being as high as 0.008120 (52 analyses of NBS-987 Sr standard produced an87Sr/86Sr of 0.719273 ± 0.000011). Since dental enamel is not remodeled after its formation in early childhood whereby the elemental composition of compact bone represents the last few years prior to death, those individuals apparently spent their childhood in a place different from their place of burial.
Hunter-gatherer subsistence-settlement strategies are discussed in terms of differing organizational components, "mapping-on" and "logistics," and the consequences of each for archaeological intersite variability are discussed. It is further suggested that the differing strategies are responsive to different security problems presented by the environments in which hunter-gatherers live. Therefore, given the beginnings of a theory of adaptation, it is possible to anticipate both differences in settlement-subsistence strategies and patterning in the archaeological record through a more detailed knowledge of the distribution of environmental variables.
This paper presents a revised chronology for the Linearbandkeramik and strontium isotope measurements of human skeletal material from two cemeteries which indicate a high incidence of migration. It appears that LBK farmers were highly migratory and interacted with surrounding communities. Our discussion begins with some general information about the Linearbandkeramik and more specific details on the LBK in the Rhine Valley where our samples were taken. We then outline the principles of strontium isotope analysis and the relevant geology of the Rhine Valley, followed by a description of two cemeteries there. Finally, we present the results and interpretation of the strontium isotope data. There are differences between tooth and bone in some skeletons indicating migration. Differences in the incidence and sex of migrants between the Middle and Late LBK suggest that the nature of movement changed over time.
"A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Thesis (Ph.D)--University of Alberta, 2006. Includes bibliographical references.
The Sr isotope composition measured in skeletal elements (e.g., bone, teeth, or antlers) can be used to infer the geographic region that an animal or human inhabited, because different regions tend to have distinct Sr isotope compositions, and natural variations in the relative abundance of Sr isotopes are not changed as Sr is processed through the food chain. Therefore, an organism that ingests Sr from one region can have a Sr isotope composition that is different than that of an organism that ingests Sr from another region. The Sr isotope composition of skeletal elements is a reflection of the concentration-weighted average of dietary Sr that was ingested while that skeletal element was produced. Because different skeletal elements grow and exchange Sr at different stages during the life times of organisms, Sr isotope analysis of different skeletal elements can be used to infer changes in geographic location at different stages in an organism's life. The Sr isotope composition measured in human teeth will reflect the average Sr isotope composition that was ingested as a child, due to the immobile nature of Sr and Ca in teeth after formation, whereas the Sr isotope composition of bone will reflect the average isotopic composition over the last ten years of life, due to continuous biological processing of Sr and Ca in bone. Inferring the average isotopic composition of dietary Sr is best done by analyzing skeletal fragments from control groups, which might be animals that have the same feeding habits as the animal in question, or, in the case of humans, analysis of close family relatives. In cases where it is not possible to construct a Sr isotope database from control groups, it becomes necessary to estimate the isotopic composition of dietary Sr based on geologic principles. We present three case studies from our research that illustrate a range of approaches: (1) results from a criminal case where a deer was illegally harvested and the location of the deer was important to establish, (2) a pilot study of commingled human remains from a burial in Vietnam, associated with the Vietnam Conflict, and (3) a study of 13th and 14th century migration of peo ple from an archeological site in the Southwest United States.
Radiocarbon dating of middle Holocene culture history in Cis-Baikal, Siberia Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the Baikal Region, Siberia: Bioarchaeological Studies of Past Lifeways University of Pennsylvania Museum Press (book under contract). of archaeologicalbone
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Biogeographic profile of the Lake Baikal region, Siberia
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Fishing technology from habitation sites on Lake Baikal (Mesolithic-Bronze Age
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Analytical perspectives on prehistoric migration: a case study from East-Central Arizona Migration, regional reorganization, and spatial group composition at Grasshopper Pueblo Fish, flesh, or fowl: in pursuit of a diet-mobility-climate continuum model in the Cis-Baikal
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Datirovka kompleksov poselenii i pogrebenii bukhty Ulan-Khada. (Dating of living sites and burials at Ulan-Khada Cove)
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