Early Colonial Diet in El Japón, Xochimilco, Mexico: Examining dietary continuity through stable isotope analysis of bone collagen and bioapatite.

Objectives: Early colonial documents from central Mesoamerica detail raising and planting of European livestock and crops alongside native ones. The extent to which Indigenous people, especially of the rural commoner class, consumed newly introduced foods is less known. This gap in knowledge is addressed through stable isotope analysis and comparison to published archaeological botanical, human, and faunal data.

Exploring the effects of weaning age on adult infectious disease mortality among 18th-19th century Italians.

Objectives: The developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis describes how early childhood stress affects morbidity and mortality later in life. The role of early childhood stress in mortality from infectious disease is understudied. Stressors in early childhood that weaken the immune system may result in increased susceptibility to infectious disease in adulthood.

The diverse genetic origins of a Classical period Greek army.

Trade and colonization caused an unprecedented increase in Mediterranean human mobility in the first millennium BCE. Often seen as a dividing force, warfare is in fact another catalyst of culture contact. We provide insight into the demographic dynamics of ancient warfare by reporting genome-wide data from fifth-century soldiers who fought for the army of the Greek Sicilian colony of Himera, along with representatives of the civilian population, nearby indigenous settlements, and 96 present-day individuals from Italy and Greece.

Isotopic evidence for geographic heterogeneity in Ancient Greek military forces.

Increased mobility and human interactions in the Mediterranean region during the eighth through fifth centuries BCE resulted in heterogeneous communities held together by political and cultural affiliations, periodically engaged in military conflict. Ancient historians write of alliances that aided the Greek Sicilian colony Himera in victory against a Carthaginian army of hired foreign mercenaries in 480 BCE, and the demise of Himera when it fought Carthage again in 409 BCE, this time unaided. Archaeological human remains from the Battles of Himera provide unique opportunities to test early written history by geochemically assessing the geographic origins of ancient Greek fighting forces.

Bioarchaeological reconstruction of physiological stress during social transition in Albania.

Objective: We test the hypothesis that physiological stress increased in response to increasing social turmoil following waves of colonization and social transition. The ways local conditions, including variation in geography, environment, and levels of urbanization impact physiological stress are also explored.

Materials: In Albania, the historic period is a sequence of different waves of colonization.

Isotopic and elemental corroborates for wild bearded capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus) omnivorous dietary adaptation at Fazenda Boa Vista, Brazil.

Rationale: This study analyzes variability in the diets of wild bearded capuchin monkeys, Sapajus libidinosus, by analyzing stable carbon (δ C) and nitrogen (δ N) isotope ratios and elemental concentrations (%C and %N) of fecal samples and food items. Developing isotopic and elemental correlates for diets of habituated subjects is a necessary step towards applying similar methods to interpret diets of unhabituated or cryptic subjects.

Methods: Fecal samples from wild capuchins and their foods were collected at Fazenda Boa Vista, Brazil.

Examining the osteological paradox: Skeletal stress in mass graves versus civilians at the Greek colony of Himera (Sicily).

Objectives: Bioarchaeologists interpret skeletal stress as evidence of resilience or frailty, where absence of lesions might result from lack of exposure to pathogens (i.e., good health) or extreme vulnerability (i.

Origin of the ornamented bâton percé from the Gołębiewo site 47 as a trigger of discussion on long-distance exchange among Early Mesolithic communities of Central Poland and Northern Europe.

This article describes evidence for contact and exchange among Mesolithic communities in Poland and Scandinavia, based on the interdisciplinary analysis of an ornamented bâton percé from Gołębiewo site 47 (Central Poland). Typological and chronological-cultural analyses show the artefact to be most likely produced in the North European Plain, during the Boreal period. Carbon-14 dating confirms the antiquity of the artefact.

Subadult dietary variation at Trino Vercellese, Italy, and its relationship to adult diet and mortality.

Objectives: Early-life nutrition is a predisposing factor for later-life outcomes. This study tests the hypothesis that subadults from medieval Trino Vercellese, Italy, who lived to adulthood consumed isotopically different diets compared with subadults who died before reaching adulthood. We have previously used a life history approach, comparing dentine and bone of the same adult individuals ("subadults who lived"), to elucidate dietary variation across the life span.

Advances in primate stable isotope ecology-Achievements and future prospects.

Stable isotope biogeochemistry has been used to investigate foraging ecology in non-human primates for nearly 30 years. Whereas early studies focused on diet, more recently, isotopic analysis has been used to address a diversity of ecological questions ranging from niche partitioning to nutritional status to variability in life history traits. With this increasing array of applications, stable isotope analysis stands to make major contributions to our understanding of primate behavior and biology.

Inter-individual variation in weaning among rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): Serum stable isotope indicators of suckling duration and lactation.

Weaning is a transition in early development with major implications for infant survival and well-being, and for maternal lifetime reproductive success. The particular strategy a primate mother adopts in rearing her offspring represents a negotiation between her ability to invest and her need to invest, and can be considered adaptive and influenced by biological and social factors. Any investigation into how and why maternal weaning strategies differ among non-human primates is limited by the precision of the measurement tool used to assess infants' weaning ages.

Laboratory and field methods for stable isotope analysis in human biology.

Stable isotope analysis (SIA; carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen) of human tissues offers a means for assessing diet among living humans. Stable isotope ratios of broad categories of food and drink food vary systematically, and stable isotope ratios in consumer tissues represent a composite of the isotopic ratios of food and drink consumed during an individual's life. Isotopic evidence for diet is independent of errors in informant recall, and accrues during time periods when researchers are absent.

Growth velocity and weaning δ(15)N "Dips" during ontogeny in Macaca mulatta.

Objectives: A "dip" in the stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ(15)N) of subadults in the late weaning/early post-weaning phase of growth and development has been observed. Speculatively, this is the mechanism of positive nitrogen balance operating among rapidly growing subadults. An alternate hypothesis for δ(15)N dips is that during weaning, subadults eat lower-(15)N foods than adults.

Reconciling "stress" and "health" in physical anthropology: what can bioarchaeologists learn from the other subdisciplines?

The concepts of "stress" and "health" are foundational in physical anthropology as guidelines for interpreting human behavior and biocultural adaptation in the past and present. Though related, stress and health are not coterminous, and while the term "health" encompasses some aspects of "stress," health refers to a more holistic condition beyond just physiological disruption, and is of considerable significance in contributing to anthropologists' understanding of humanity's lived experiences. Bioarchaeological interpretations of human health generally are made from datasets consisting of skeletal markers of stress, markers that result from (chronic) physiological disruption (e.

Beyond diet reconstruction: stable isotope applications to human physiology, health, and nutrition.

Analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes from soft or mineralized tissues is a direct and widely-used technique for modeling diets. In addition to its continued role in paleodiet analysis, stable isotope analysis is now contributing to studies of physiology, disease, and nutrition in archaeological and living human populations. In humans and other animals, dietary uptake and distribution of carbon and nitrogen among mineralized and soft tissue is carried out with varying efficiency due to factors of internal biology.

Introducing fecal stable isotope analysis in primate weaning studies.

This research investigates the potential of a new, noninvasive method for determining age of weaning among primates using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in feces. Analysis of stable isotope ratios in body tissues is a well-established method in archeology and ecology for reconstructing diet. This is the first study to investigate weaning in primates using fecal stable isotope ratios.

Stable isotope evidence for sex- and status-based variations in diet and life history at medieval Trino Vercellese, Italy.

The medieval period in Europe was a time of unprecedented social complexity that affected human diet. The diets of certain subgroups-for example, children, women, and the poor-are chronically underrepresented in historical sources from the medieval period. To better understand diet and the distribution of foods during the medieval period, we investigated stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of 30 individuals from Trino Vercellese, Northern Italy (8th-13th c.

Brief communication: oxygen isotopes as a biomarker for sickle-cell disease? Results from transgenic mice expressing human hemoglobin S genes.

The origins of sickle-cell disease (SCD) are well understood, as are its evolutionary pressures on humans and pathological presentation. However, because it has not been possible to identify SCD in archaeological contexts, its biocultural effects on past populations are unknown. Previous research investigating oxygen isotope fractionation during respiration among anemics suggests that oxygen isotopes in bone apatite may provide a biological marker for SCD in skeletal remains.