Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each isotope by what it primarily reveals.
Groups: Diet (what they ate) · Origin (where they grew up)
- Nitrogen spike of a breastfeeding infant
- Strontium in tooth enamel
- Oxygen in tooth enamel
- Enamel signature matching a distant bedrock
- Nitrogen δ¹⁵N: trophic level, meat and fish
- Carbon δ¹³C: C3 versus C4 plants
Hints
- Two isotope systems read the plate, two read the map.
- Ask whether the signal comes from food or from geology.
Show the answer
Diet (what they ate): Carbon δ¹³C: C3 versus C4 plants, Nitrogen δ¹⁵N: trophic level, meat and fish, Nitrogen spike of a breastfeeding infant
Origin (where they grew up): Strontium in tooth enamel, Oxygen in tooth enamel, Enamel signature matching a distant bedrock
Why
Carbon and nitrogen read the plate; strontium and oxygen read the map. Two chemistries, two utterly different biographies, sometimes from the same tooth.
Practise Bioarchaeology
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Bioarchaeology
- A cemetery with many skeletons showing healed disease lesions must have been a sicker population than one…
- A cemetery shows high infant mortality and, among adults, unusually good health. Why might that be a…
- Order these skeletal age markers from the youngest age they appear to the oldest.
- A skeleton shows no disease lesions at all. Why does that NOT establish that the person was healthy?
- Match each isotope system to its headline result.
- Which conclusions can bioarchaeology reasonably support from a well-preserved cemetery?
- A skeleton shows enamel hypoplasia lines and a healed fracture. Why do the two together say more about this…