This abstracts is part of session #378:
Title:
Reconstructing life histories using serial carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope variation in human dental enamel.
Content:
The application of strontium (Sr) isotopic analysis to bulk human dental enamel is an established technique used to assess mobility. However, conventional Sr bulk analysis provides only a single averaged datapoint, which hinder our ability to investigate mobility patterns at high resolution. In recent years, researchers have attempted to tackle this issue by constructing incremental sampling milling protocols, which enable the tracking of Sr isotopic variations over an individual’s early life. Whilst these hand-milling methodologies significantly increase our interpretations of residency biographies, they are currently limited in the number of increments one can remove, in comparison to their application on faunal specimens and in-situ analysis. As such, there is a requirement to continue adapting these techniques, increasing the number of viable increments sampled, to improve the resolution of mobility life-histories observable in human teeth.
This study presents an expanded incremental technique for human tooth enamel, revealing variations in strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) and elemental concentrations, in combination with carbon (δ13C), oxygen (δ18O) isotopic values, to be observed at a high-resolution during the tooth enamel formation period. This technique uses thin sections of enamel to guide the milling of incremental samples. Preliminary results from a collection of recently excavated human teeth reveals a promising indication that enamel increments can be successfully sampled along a human tooth enamel growth axis. However, the growth pattern of human tooth enamel, and the volume of powdered enamel required for analysis, limits the number of increments that can be milled in a resolvable time series. As such, this presentation will discuss the potential as well as the limitations of this technique, providing a plan of how to we will increase the resolution of the methodology in future research.
Keywords:
Strontium Isotope Analysis, Incremental Enamel Isotopes, Life Histories, Mobility Studies, Human Teeth
Main authors:
Jacob Griffith1,2
Co-author:
Hannah James1,2
Barbara Veselka1,2
Christina Cheung1,2
Christophe Snoeck1,2
Affiliations:
1 Maritime Cultures Research Institute, Department of Art Sciences and Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
2 Research Unit: Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
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