Method of micro-sampling human dentine collagen for stable isotope analysis.

Rationale: Sampling of dentine for stable carbon (δ C) and nitrogen (δ N) isotope ratios in the direction of tooth growth allows the study of temporal changes to the diet and physiological stress of an individual during tooth formation. Current methods of sampling permanent teeth using 1 mm increments provide temporal resolution of 6-9 months at best depending on the tooth chosen. Although this gives sufficient sample sizes for reliable analysis by mass spectrometry, sectioning the dentine across the incremental structures results in a rolling average of the isotope ratios.

Scottish soldiers from the Battle of Dunbar 1650: A prosopographical approach to a skeletal assemblage.

After the Battle Dunbar between English and Scottish forces in 1650, captured Scottish soldiers were imprisoned in Durham and many hundreds died there within a few weeks. The partial skeletal remains of 28 of these men were discovered in 2013. Building on previous osteological work, here we report wide-ranging scientific studies of the remains to address the following questions: Did they have comparable diet, health and disease throughout their lives? Did they have common histories of movement (or lack of movement) during their childhoods? Can we create a collective biography of these men? Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel investigated childhood movement.

Basilar portion porosity: A pathological lesion possibly associated with infantile scurvy.

Recent analysis of the juvenile (≤12 years) human remains from a 19th century site in Wolverhampton, England revealed a relatively high level of nutritional deficiency diseases within the population. Indeed, 41.7% of the 48 juvenile skeletons analysed exhibited a combination of porous and proliferative bone lesions consistent with the pathological alterations associated with nutritional stress.

Limits and possibilities in the geolocation of humans using multiple isotope ratios (H, O, N, C) of hair from east coast cities of the USA.

We examined multiple natural abundance isotope ratios of human hair to assess biological variability within and between geographic locations and, further, to determine how well these isotope values predict location of origin. Sampling locations feature differing seasonality and mobile populations as a robust test of the method. Serially-sampled hair from Cambridge, MA, USA, shows lower δ(2)H and δ(18)O variability over a one-year time course than model-predicted precipitation isotope ratios, but exhibits considerable differences between individuals.

Identification of cooked bone using TEM imaging of bone collagen.

Mild heating (≤100° C, 1 h)-typical of cooking-does not lead to detectable changes in any biochemical parameter yet measured; consequently bones that have been cooked, but which have not reached a temperature that will induce charring go undetected. We have used a microscopy based approach to investigate changes in the organization of the bone protein, collagen, as it is heated, using bone from heating experiments, short term burials, and archaeological sites. The work has revealed that the presence of a mineral matrix stabilizes the collagen enabling the damage to accumulate, but preventing it from causing immediate gelatinization.

Preservation of ancient DNA in thermally damaged archaeological bone.

Evolutionary biologists are increasingly relying on ancient DNA from archaeological animal bones to study processes such as domestication and population dispersals. As many animal bones found on archaeological sites are likely to have been cooked, the potential for DNA preservation must be carefully considered to maximise the chance of amplification success. Here, we assess the preservation of mitochondrial DNA in a medieval cattle bone assemblage from Coppergate, York, UK.