Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:33:51.561Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Isotopes and impact: a cautionary tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

A.M. Pollard
A.M. Pollard*
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There can be no doubt that isotopic studies have made a huge contribution to archaeology in recent years, so much so that isotope archaeology is now seen as an essential subdiscipline of archaeology in much the same way as isotope geochemistry is a key subdiscipline of geochemistry. Ignoring for current purposes the contribution made by the measurement of a particular radioactive isotope of carbon (14C) since 1950, we can date the beginnings of isotope archaeology to the mid 1960s with the first measurements of lead isotopes in archaeological metals and slags by Brill and Wampler (1965, 1967). This was followed by carbon stable isotopes in human bone collagen in the late 1970s, building on previous work measuring σ13C in archaeological bone for radiocarbon determinations (Vogel & Van der Merwe 1977; Van der Merwe & Vogel 1978). Other isotopes followed rapidly, such as nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and hydrogen for archaeological, palaeoecological or palaeoclimatological purposes and, more recently, the heavier radiogenic isotopes of strontium and neodymium for determining the provenance of organic and inorganic materials (Pollard & Heron 2008).

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 328 , June 2011 , pp. 631 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bentley, R. A. 2006. Strontium isotopes from the earth to the archaeological skeleton: a review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13:135–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brill, R. H. & Wampler, J.M. 1965. Isotope studies of ancient lead. American Journal of Archaeology 69:165–66.Google Scholar
Brill, R. H. & Wampler, J.M. 1967. Isotope studies of ancient lead. American Journal of Archaeology 71:63–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericson, J. E. 1985. Strontium isotope characterization in the study of human prehistoric ecology. Journal of Human Evolution 14:503–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huertas, A. D., Iacumin, P., Stenni, B., Chillon, B. S. & Longinelli, A. 1995. Oxygen-isotope variations of phosphate in mammalian bone and tooth enamel. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 59:4299–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, J. 2010. Passports from the past: investigating human dispersals using strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel. Annals of Human Biology 37:325–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pollard, A. M. 2009. What a long strange trip it's been: lead isotopes in archaeology, in Shortland, A.J., Freestone, I. C. & Rehren, T. (ed). From mine to microscope: advances in the study of ancient technology: 181–9. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Pollard, A. M. & Heron, C. 2008. Archaeological chemistry. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.Google Scholar
Sillen, A. & Kavanagh, M. 1982. Strontium and paleodietary research: a review. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 25:67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. P. 1959. The two cultures and the scientific revolution (The Rede Lecture 1959). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Der Merwe, N. J. & Vogel, J. C. 1978. 13C content of human collagen as a measure of prehistoric diet in woodland North America. Nature 276:815–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vogel, J. C. & Van Der Merwe, N. J. 1977. Isotopic evidence for early maize cultivation in New York State. American Antiquity 42:238–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar