Comparing apples and oranges: Why infant bone collagen may not reflect dietary intake in the same way as dentine collagen (original) (raw)

Recent developments in incremental dentine analysis allowing increased temporal resolution for tissues formed during the first 1,000 days of life have cast doubt on the veracity of weaning studies using bone collagen carbon (δ C) and nitrogen (δ N) isotope ratio data from infants. Here, we compare published bone data from the well-preserved Anglo-Saxon site of Raunds Furnells, England, with co-forming dentine from the same individuals, and investigate the relationship of these with juvenile stature. The high-resolution isotope data recorded in dentine allow us to investigate the relationship of diet with juvenile stature during this critical period of life. We compare incremental dentine collagen δ C and δ N data to published bone collagen data for 18 juveniles and 5 female adults from Anglo Saxon Raunds Furnells alongside new data for juvenile skeletal and dental age. An improvement in the method by sampling the first 0.5 mm of the sub-cuspal or sub-incisal dentine allows the isoto...