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NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory |
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Science-based archaeology > Migration Migration Tooth enamel provides a unique archive for strontium and oxygen isotopes which can be used to study human and animal migration. Such studies are based on the principle that both isotopes record values that are indicative of the environment in which the individual lived at the time of enamel mineralisation. Sr isotopes, which are incorporated through food and drink, can be used to relate the individual to the land on which they lived whereas oxygen isotopes are associated with climatic regions. |
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| Neolithic cattle origins from Durrington Walls Durrington Walls is a circular wooden Neolithic structure, near Stonehenge, at which large quantities of animal bones have been found. It is thought that it may have been a site of feasting. Strontium isotope analysis of some of the cattle teeth found at the site show that the animals came from a variety of places and only few were raised on the local Chalk Downs. PI: U. Albarella, Sheffield. |
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| Faunal migration in late-glacial central Italy: implications for human resource exploitation. The hunter-gatherer transhumance model presents foragers as specialised hunters of migratory ungulates, which moved seasonally between coastal lowlands and interior uplands. We studied six animal teeth of horse (Equus hydruntinus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) from four different archaeological sites: the Grotta di Vado all’Arancio, Grotta di Settecannelle, Grotta Polesini and Grotta di Pozzo, in central Italy to test whether the migratory patterns and seasonal variations recorded in their teeth were consistent with expectations of the transhumance model for this region during the late Upper Palaeolithic. Sequential sub-samples of enamel were analysed from each tooth for oxygen, carbon and strontium isotope ratios to reconstruct mobility and yearly seasonal variations. The results show little evidence that these animals were moving over different geological terrains throughout the year, although small variations in Sr isotope ratios and concentrations were detected that corresponded to probable seasonal variations as shown by variability in oxygen isotope sequences. The results do, however, demonstrate that Cervus elaphus and Equus hydruntinus had different ranging behaviours, with the former moving over wider areas than the latter. |
This methodology produces results appropriate to assess animal migratory behaviour and, in turn, to test the consistency of proposed models of hunter-gatherer subsistence and mobility strategies.
Marie Curie Post doctoral collaborative project between Bradford and NIGL. |
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| Isotopic evidence for forced migration to colonial Barbados This study uses isotopic evidence to investigate the life histories of captive Africans who were transhipped to the island of Barbados as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. Hannes Schroeder (AHRC funded DPhil candidate, University of Oxford) uses strontium isotope analyses on a recently approved (April 2007) NIGL research support grant to identify the origins of these enslaved individuals. The results indicate that the majority were probably born in Barbados, as their enamel 87Sr/86Sr isotope values are consistent with the island's limestone geology. Some, however, exhibit unusually high values as we might expect them from the Precambrian rock formations of West Africa. What's more, variation between these 'outliers' is sufficiently large to suggest heterogeneous origins for the individuals in this group. Evidently, Barbadian planters derived their slaves from widely different parts of Africa, including the Senegambia and the Gold Coast. These results bear important implications for our understanding of the nature and survival of African culture in the Americas and the ways in which the slave trade shaped life in the New World. |
 Components of a necklace found in a historical burial from Barbados. 87Sr/86Sr isotope analyses were conducted on three of the dog canines. Photograph courtesy of Jerome Handler. |
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| The Beaker Isotope Project NIGL is involved in a collaborative, AHRC funded, project entitled 'The Beaker Isotope Project' collaborating with Prof M. Parker Pearson & Dr Andrew Chamberlain at University of Sheffield, and Prof. Mike Richards of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. This project is currently in its second year of funding. For further details click here to go to Beaker project website at Sheffield: http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/ beaker-isotope |
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| Early Anglo Saxons: colonisers or culturally adapted locals? Strontium, oxygen and lead isotopes were used to show that the Early Anglo-Saxon population at West Heslerton was predominantly of British origin. Montgomery, J, Evans, J A, Powlesland, D, and Roberts, C A. 2005. Continuity or colonisation in Anglo-Saxon England? Isotope evidence for mobility, subsistence practice, and status at West Heslerton. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 126(2), 123-138. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/ query.fcgi? cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids= 15386290&dopt=Abstract |
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| Origin of the Norse communities on Lewis, Outer Hebrides The Norse populations from Cnip and Galston showed a group of individuals raised locally on the machair soils of Lewis and other individuals from diverse places that could include southern England, Antrim and Mainland Scotland. Montgomery, J, and Evans, J A. 2006. Immigrants on the Isle of Lewis -combining traditional funerary and modern isotope evidence to investigate social differentiation, migration and dietary change in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. In R Gowland and C Knusel (eds.) The Social Archaeology of Funerary, Remains. (Oxford, Oxbow Books.) |
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| 4th Century communication between Bavaria and Britain A set of exotic burials in Hampshire supports the evacuation of Samaritan refugees out of Southern Europe during the Roman period. Oxygen isotopes are used to demonstrate that this is an isotopically distinct group of non-British individuals. The aim of the project was to test the hypothesis, using oxygen and strontium isotopes, that a group of burials in the Late Roman cemetery of Lankhills, Winchester, southern England, were migrants from the Danube region of central Europe. The method assumes that the oxygen isotope composition of immigrants from this locale would be significantly more depleted that any one of British origin and that the restricted range in Sr isotope compositions produced by chalk in the overlying biosphere of southern England would discriminate between the local population and settlers from elsewhere. As a control for the immigrant group a sample of Romano-British individuals were examined to provide a comparative dataset. |
The results showed that the majority of the individuals used to define the 'local' control
group plotted in a restricted field of strontium and oxygen isotope composition that was consistent with the values expected for the Hampshire
area of southern England. By contrast the 'exotic', putatively immigrant population, generated a much more dispersed field including four with δ18O
drinking water values of –10‰ or less, which supports a non British origin for these individuals. The study shows that the archaeological
data suggesting that there is an exotic population buried at the Lankhills cemetery is generally supported by the isotope work, although the
'exotic' group appears to a rather dispersed set of individuals rather than a single population from a restricted overseas location. Evans J A Stoodley, N, and Chenery C A. (2006) A strontium and oxygen isotope assessment of a possible 4th century immigrant population in a Hampshire cemetery, southern England. Journal of Archaeological Sciences 33. p265-272. LINK to Oxford Archaeology site: http://www.oau-oxford.com/html_pages/ lankhills_feature.htm |
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| Tracking Bronze Age migration and culture Can static and migratory populations be identified? Were the technological and cultural changes recognised in Britain during the Bronze Age associated with the influx of a new population of people? Contrasting lifestyles are recorded by the isotope composition of Bronze Age beaker people (c.2500-2000 BC) from three burials sites (Boscombe Down, Normanton Down and the ditch around Stonehenge) at or near to the Stonehenge monument in Wiltshire, southern England. Seven individuals (three adults, a sub-adult, two juveniles and an infant) were recovered from a single grave at Boscombe Down. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel from two teeth (a premolar and third molar) from each of three of the adults in this grave (referred to as Boscombe Bowmen) show that they had all shared a pattern of mobility and migration during their lives. The three adult males spent their early childhood (as represented by data from the premolar teeth) in an area with a radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr isotope signature around 0.7135. They each then moved, during early adolescence (as represented by the third molar results), to a less radiogenic area where they acquired an 87Sr/86Sr signature of c.0.7112.  Diagram showing the results of 87Sr/86Sr analysis of tooth enamel and dentine from individuals from Boscombe Down and other nearby Bronze Age sites. This implies that they must then have travelled to the Stonehenge area of Wiltshire at a later time in their lives. |
 Wales provides the closest area with rocks that supply suitable 87Sr/86Sr ratios and δ18O isotope composition for these individuals, although other areas of Palaeozoic rock, such as Scotland and parts of Europe, cannot be ruled out. Enamel from the two juveniles from the Boscombe Down burial yields 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7098 and 0.7099, strontium concentrations for both of 55 ppm. The very close match of the data for the two juveniles supports the possibility that they were raised in the same environment. The difference in strontium isotope data between the juveniles and three adult males described above show that the children did not come from the same homeland as the adults with whom they share a grave. The two adult males from the single burials at Normanton Down, and from Stonehenge itself had static lifestyles and show no evidence of migration, in contrast to the Boscombe Bowmen. Their oxygen and strontium data are consistent with a childhood in the Stonehenge area. Evans, J A Chenery C A and Fitzpatrick A P (2006) Bronze Age childhood migration of individuals near Stonehenge revealed by strontium and oxygen isotope tooth enamel analysis. Archaeometry 48, 309-321. LINK to Boscombe Bowmen at Wessex Archaeology http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/ wiltshire/boscombe/boscombe.html |
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