The stable isotope analysis of preserved proteinaceous tissues, such as bone collagen and hair keratin, offers a powerful means of examining individual dietary practices in archaeology and, through ...this, inferring the subsistence behaviours, socio-cultural practices, and food preferences of past populations. Previous isotope research at the precontact Yup’ik village site of Nunalleq, Alaska, has provided evidence of a mixed diet of marine and terrestrial foods (but likely dominated by salmonids), but also highlighted some dietary variability amongst the inhabitants of the site. However, materials from the older rescue excavations were insufficient to infer whether this variability was interpersonal and/or diachronic in nature. Here, new stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from human hair are presented. These were obtained during the research excavations at Nunalleq from temporally constrained, well-stratified contexts. The new data reveal dietary change through time at the site, highlighting changes in resource use and subsistence practices during the Little Ice Age. During the middle phase of occupation at the site (Phase III; cal AD 1620–1650), diet is more varied, most likely relating to the differing relative contribution of salmon versus higher trophic level marine mammal protein to the diet of some individuals at the site. Analysis reveals these differences to be site-spatial, possibly indicating differences with the use of space at the site, and/or hinting at possible social differentiation in diet during Phase III. In the final occupation phase (Phase II; cal AD 1640–1660), diet is more homogeneous and demonstrates an increased exploitation of higher-trophic level marine foods.
Strontium isotopes analysis is a powerful tool in the study of past animal movements, notably the sequential analysis of tooth enamel to reconstruct individual movements in a time-series. Compared to ...traditional solution analysis, high resolution sampling using laser-ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) has the potential to reflect fine scale mobility. However, the averaging of the
Sr/
Sr intake during the enamel mineralization process may limit fine scale inferences. We compared solution and LA-MC-ICP-MS
Sr/
Sr intra-tooth profiles from the second and third molars of 5 caribou from the Western Arctic herd, Alaska. Profiles from both methods showed similar trends, reflecting the seasonal migratory movements, but LA-MC-ICP-MS profiles showed a less damped
Sr/
Sr signal than solution profiles. Geographic assignments of the profile endmembers to the known summer and winter ranges were consistent between methods and with the expected timing of enamel formation but showed discrepancy at a finer scale. Variations on LA-MC-ICP-MS profiles, consistent with expected seasonal movements, suggested more than an admixture of the endmember values. However, more work in understanding enamel formation in Rangifer, and other ungulates, and how
Sr/
Sr daily intake translates into enamel are needed to assess the real resolution that can be achieved with LA-MC-ICP-MS.
Oxygen isotope analyses of skeletal remains (18O/16O, δ18O) are a powerful tool for exploring major themes in bioarchaeology (the study of biological archaeological remains) and can aid in the ...reconstruction of past human-environment interactions, socio-cultural decisions and individual life histories. Making use of the preserved animal and human tooth and bone commonly found at archaeological sites, applications include the reconstruction of palaeoclimate and palaeoseasonality; animal husbandry and management practices; human and animal lifetime mobility and provenance; and cultural practices such as breastfeeding, weaning and even past culinary preparation techniques. With a range of other uses across the natural, physical, chemical and biological sciences, oxygen isotope analyses are also highly cross-disciplinary, with developments in the field of isotope bioarchaeology potentially feeding into other fields and vice-versa. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the biogeochemical background of oxygen isotope systematics from the water cycle to human and animal skeletal tissues for archaeologists and other scientists, and to explore how these have been utilised in terrestrial bioarchaeological research. In this way, we aim to provide an overview resource for stable isotope analysts in archaeology and the wider earth science community, as well as for archaeological practitioners and consumers interested in specific applications. By providing a summary of fundamental isotope mechanics alongside a review of recent developments in the field, we hope to highlight the potential of oxygen isotope bioarchaeology to not only reveal environmental and ecological aspects of the past relevant to human groups using archaeological materials, but also to illuminate past human decisions and behaviours. Current limitations and caveats of the approaches used are also explored.
The New World Arctic, the last region of the Americas to be populated by humans, has a relatively well-researched archaeology, but an understanding of its genetic history is lacking. We present ...genome-wide sequence data from ancient and present-day humans from Greenland, Arctic Canada, Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Siberia. We show that Paleo-Eskimos (~3000 BCE to 1300 CE) represent a migration pulse into the Americas independent of both Native American and Inuit expansions. Furthermore, the genetic continuity characterizing the Paleo-Eskimo period was interrupted by the arrival of a new population, representing the ancestors of present-day Inuit, with evidence of past gene flow between these lineages. Despite periodic abandonment of major Arctic regions, a single Paleo-Eskimo metapopulation likely survived in near-isolation for more than 4000 years, only to vanish around 700 years ago.
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology ...to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Palaeo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a secondary pre-contact migration of dogs distinct from Palaeo-Inuit dogs, and probably aided the Inuit expansion across the North American Arctic beginning around 1000 BP.
Abstract
Here we present stable carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotope ratios of collagen extracted from
Rangifer
,
Equus
and
Bison
bone (
n
= 128) from different stratigraphic levels at the ...chronologically well-constrained Middle and Upper Palaeolithic site of Les Cottés, France. Samples were taken from five phases of site use (US08, US06, US04 upper and lower, and US02; ~ 45.8–35.3 ka cal BP) to explore the dietary and spatial palaeoecology of these ungulate species during MIS 3, and the contemporary climate. Temporal trends in
δ
15
N values of all species broadly align with other climatic indicators at the site and the lowest values in US04 correspond to the Heinrich 4 cooling event, reflecting changes in the composition of soil/plant nitrogen at this time.
Rangifer
collagen is
13
C-enriched compared to the other species throughout, consistent with lichen consumption. However, this isotopic niche partitioning between
Rangifer
and
Equus
/
Bison
is most extensive during US04, indicating plasticity in reindeer feeding behaviour, and potentially overall increased lichen biomass during this cooler/more arid phase.
Rangifer δ
34
S values are consistently lower than
Equus
and
Bison
, which could be indicative of their more extensive spatial ranges incorporating greater inland areas.
Equus
and
Bison
demonstrate a significant decrease in
δ
34
S values through time, which may be linked to contemporary climatic decline.
Establishing strontium isotope (
87
Sr/
86
Sr) geographical variability is a key component of any study that seeks to utilize strontium isotopes as tracers of provenance or mobility. Although ...lithological maps can provide a guideline, estimations of bioavailable
87
Sr/
86
Sr are often necessary, both in qualitative estimates of local strontium isotope “catchments” and for informing/refining isoscape models. Local soils, plants and/or animal remains are commonly included in bioavailability studies, although consensus on what (and how extensively) to sample is lacking. In this study, 96 biological samples (plants and snails) were collected at 17 locations spanning 6 lithological units, within a region of south-west France and an area with a high concentration of Paleolithic archaeological sites. Sampling sites aligned with those from a previous study on soil bioavailable strontium, and comparison with these values, and the influence of environmental and anthropogenic variables, was explored. Data confirm a broad correspondence of plant and snail
87
Sr/
86
Sr values with lithological unit/soil values, although the correlation between expected
87
Sr/
86
Sr values from lithology and bioavailable
87
Sr/
86
Sr ratios from biological samples was higher for plants than for snails. Grass, shrub and tree
87
Sr/
86
Sr values were similar but grasses had a stronger relationship with topsoil values than trees, reflecting differences in root architecture. Variability in
87
Sr/
86
Sr ratios from all plant samples was lower for sites located on homogeneous geological substrates than for those on heterogeneous substrates, such as granite. Among environmental and anthropogenic variables, only an effect of proximity to water was detected, with increased
87
Sr/
86
Sr values in plants from sites close to rivers originating from radiogenic bedrock. The results highlight the importance of analyzing biological samples to complement, inform and refine strontium isoscape models. The sampling of plants rather than snails is recommended, including plants of varying root depth, and (if sample size is a limitation) to collect a greater number of samples from areas with heterogeneous geological substrates to improve the characterizations of those regions. Finally, we call for new experimental studies on the mineralized tissues of grazers, browsers, frugivores and/or tree leaf feeders to explore the influence of
87
Sr/
86
Sr variability with soil profile/root architecture on
87
Sr/
86
Sr values of locally-feeding fauna.
Exploring the role of changing climates in human evolution is currently impeded by a scarcity of climatic information at the same temporal scale as the human behaviors documented in archaeological ...sites. This is mainly caused by high uncertainties in the chronometric dates used to correlate long-term climatic records with archaeological deposits. One solution is to generate climatic data directly from archaeological materials representing human behavior. Here we use oxygen isotope measurements of Bos/Bison tooth enamel to reconstruct summer and winter temperatures in the Late Pleistocene when Neandertals were using the site of La Ferrassie. Our results indicate that, despite the generally cold conditions of the broader period and despite direct evidence for cold features in certain sediments at the site, Neandertals used the site predominantly when climatic conditions were mild, similar to conditions in modern day France. We suggest that due to millennial scale climate variability, the periods of human activity and their climatic characteristics may not be representative of average conditions inferred from chronological correlations with long-term climatic records. These results highlight the importance of using direct routes, such as the high-resolution archives in tooth enamel from anthropogenically accumulated faunal assemblages, to establish climatic conditions at a human scale.
Tooth crowding is one of several criteria used to infer the process of domestication in the zooarchaeological record. It has been primarily used to support claims of early animal domestication, ...perhaps most contentiously in claims for the existence of so-called “proto-domestic” dogs as early as the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic. Tooth crowding studies vary in their methodological approaches, and interpretation of the resulting data is constrained by the limited geographic and temporal scope of reference specimens used to construct an appropriate comparative framework. To address these key problems, we present a standardised landmark-based protocol for the measurement and quantification of mandibular tooth crowding that can be systematically applied in the context of dog domestication research. We then test the assumption that tooth crowding is less frequent in ancient and modern wild wolf populations by examining 750 modern dogs and 205 modern wolves from across the modern geographic range of Canis lupus as well as 66 Late Pleistocene wolves from Alaska.
Our results demonstrate that landmark-based metrics provide a reliable approach for recording and analysing tooth crowding. Although it is likely that the relatively low frequency of tooth crowding found in our modern dog dataset (∼6%) in part reflects the ‘modern’ morphology of domestic breeds, the higher frequency of crowding in both modern (∼18%) and ancient (∼36%) wolves strongly suggests that current assumptions linking tooth crowding with the process of early domestication (at least in dogs) should be critically re-evaluated, and that further investigations into the drivers behind these developmental patterns should be pursued.
•A novel landmark-based protocol to record mandibular tooth crowding is presented.•Report high levels of tooth crowding in ancient and modern wolves relative to dogs.•LDA suggests that wolves and dogs cannot be separated based on tooth crowding.•Discourages use of tooth crowding as a marker of the early domestication process.•Further research should explore developmental driving processes of tooth crowding.
There are longstanding questions about the origins and ancestry of the Picts of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300-900 CE), prompted in part by exotic medieval origin myths, their enigmatic symbols and ...inscriptions, and the meagre textual evidence. The Picts, first mentioned in the late 3rd century CE resisted the Romans and went on to form a powerful kingdom that ruled over a large territory in northern Britain. In the 9th and 10th centuries Gaelic language, culture and identity became dominant, transforming the Pictish realm into Alba, the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Scotland. To date, no comprehensive analysis of Pictish genomes has been published, and questions about their biological relationships to other cultural groups living in Britain remain unanswered. Here we present two high-quality Pictish genomes (2.4 and 16.5X coverage) from central and northern Scotland dated from the 5th-7th century which we impute and co-analyse with >8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based approaches, we can firmly place the genomes within the Iron Age gene pool in Britain and demonstrate regional biological affinity. We also demonstrate the presence of population structure within Pictish groups, with Orcadian Picts being genetically distinct from their mainland contemporaries. When investigating Identity-By-Descent (IBD) with present-day genomes, we observe broad affinities between the mainland Pictish genomes and the present-day people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria, but less with the rest of England, the Orkney islands and eastern Scotland-where the political centres of Pictland were located. The pre-Viking Age Orcadian Picts evidence a high degree of IBD sharing across modern Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Orkney islands, demonstrating substantial genetic continuity in Orkney for the last ~2,000 years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity at the Pictish cemetery of Lundin Links (n = 7) reveals absence of direct common female ancestors, with implications for broader social organisation. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the genetic affinities and population structure of the Picts and direct relationships between ancient and present-day groups of the UK.
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