Diagnosing Individual Mobility by the 87Sr/86Sr Isotope Methods (Evidence from the Krivoe Ozero Burial Ground of the Bronze Age in the Southern Transurals) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Collegium Antropologicum, 2018
Chultukov Log-1 is a large barrow cemetery, located in the valley of Lower Katun river (Northern Altai, Russia), in which various cultural traditions of the Scythian era are represented (Pazyryk, Karakoba, Bystrianka). The main goal of this study was to determine whether the individuals buried in the cemetery and representing different cultural traditions are uniform in terms of their geographical origin. In order to reconstruction of origin of individuals an analysis of the isotopic composition of oxygen was performed within bone apatite phosphates from well preserved samples. To verify the state of preservation of human and animal osseous remains, diagenetic indices were calculated based on Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer spectra (FTIR). One of the most important conclusions is the identification in the cemetery of individuals probably originating from the north. The most probable scenario is population movements of the Bystrianka culture people from the steppe and piedmon...
Chultukov Log-1 is a large barrow cemetery, located in the valley of Lower Katun river (Northern Altai, Russia), in which various cultural traditions of the Scythian era are represented (Pazyryk, Karakoba, Bystrianka). The main goal of this study was to determine whether the individuals buried in the cemetery and representing different cultural traditions are uniform in terms of their geographical origin. In order to reconstruct the origin of individuals an analysis of the isotopic composition of oxygen was performed within bone apatite phosphates from well preserved samples. To verify the state of preservation of human and animal osseous remains, diagenetic indices were calculated based on Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR). One of the most important conclusions is that the individuals from the cemetery probably originated in the north. The most probable scenario includes population movements of the Bystrianka culture people from the steppe and piedmont zones to the south, to the mountainous valley of Lower Katun river in the Northern Altai, where they assimilated with the North Pazyryk communities. However, the contact of the inhabitants of the Norhern Altai with the south was not the result of migrations, but rather of the trade and the common genesis of the North Pazyrykgroups and the Pazyryk culture from Central and South-Eastern Altai. Some people of local origin had different eschatological beliefs and accordingly buried their dead in stone boxes (Karakoba type).
Detecting Mobility in Early Iron Age Thessaly by Strontium Isotope Analysis
European Journal of Archaeology, 2018
This article presents evidence of population movements in Thessaly, Greece, during the Early Iron Age (Protogeometric period, eleventh–ninth centuries BC). The method we employed to detect non-local individuals is strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr) of tooth enamel integrated with the contextual analysis of mortuary practices and osteological analysis of the skeletal assemblage. During the Protogeometric period, social and cultural transformations occurred while society was recovering from the disintegration of the Mycenaean civilization (twelfth century BC). The analysis of the cemeteries of Voulokaliva, Chloe, and Pharsala, located in southern Thessaly, showed that non-local individuals integrated in the communities we focused on and contributed to the observed diversity in burial practices and to the developments in the formation of a social organization.
Strontium isotope analysis reveals prehistoric mobility patterns in the southeastern Baltic area
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2022
We measured 87 Sr/ 86 Sr for all available human remains (n = 40) dating from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age (ca. 6400-800 cal BC) in Lithuania. In addition, local baselines of archaeological fauna from the same area were constructed. We identified significant and systematic offsets between 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values of modern soils and animals and archaeological animals due to currently unknown reasons. By comparing 87 Sr/ 86 Sr human intra-tooth variation with the local baselines, we identified 13 non-local individuals, accounting for 25-50% of the analysed population. We found no differences in the frequency of local vs. nonlocals between male and female hunter-gatherers. Six Mesolithic-Subneolithic individuals with 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values > 0.7200 may have come from southern Finland and/or Karelia. Two Mesolithic-Subneolithic individuals from the Donkalnis cemetery with 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values < 0.7120 likely came from the Lithuanian Baltic coast. These data demonstrate coastal-inland mobility of up to 85 km, which is also supported by archaeological evidence. The standard deviation in the intra-tooth 87 Sr/ 86 Sr indicates that mobility did not decrease with the adoption of pottery technology at ca. 5000 cal BC but rather slowly decreased during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. We interpret this as a result of the introduction and subsequent intensification of farming. The least mobile way of life was practised by Subneolithic coastal communities during the 4th millennium cal BC, although 87 Sr/ 86 Sr do not exclude that they migrated along the coastline.
PLoS ONE, 2023
European Bronze Age societies are generally characterised by increased mobility and the application of isotopic methods to archaeology has allowed the rate and range of human travels to be quantified. However, little is known about the mobility of the people inhabiting East-Central Europe in the late Early and Middle Bronze Age (1950–1250 BC) whose primary subsistence strategy was herding supported by crop cultivation. This paper presents the results of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analyses in the enamel of people buried in collective graves at the cemeteries in Gustorzyn and Żerniki Go´rne. These sites are located in Kujawy and the Nida Basin, a lowland and an upland region with clearly different environmental conditions, respectively. Both sites are classified as belonging to the Trzciniec cultural circle and were used between 16th and 13th centuries BC. Among the 34 examined individuals only an adult female from Gustorzyn can be assessed as non-local based on both 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O signatures in her first molar. This may indicate the practice of exogamy in the studied population but more generally corresponds with the hypothesis of limited mobility within these societies, as has previously been inferred from archaeological evidence, anthropological analysis, and stable isotope-based diet reconstruction. New and existing data evaluated in this paper show that the 87Sr/86Sr variability in the natural environment of both regions is relatively high, allowing the tracking of shortrange human mobility. A series of oxygen isotope analyses (conducted for all but one individuals studied with strontium isotopes) indicates that δ18O ratios measured in phosphate are in agreement with the predicted modern oxygen isotope precipitation values, and that this method is useful in detecting travels over larger distances. The challenges of using both 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O isotopic systems in provenance studies in the glacial landscapes of temperate Europe are also discussed.