Diet and species-specific oxygen isotope relationship and isotope spacing between structural carbonate and phosphate in archaeological mammalian bones

Goehring, Andrea; Carnap-Bornheim, Claus von; Hilberg, Volker; Mayr, Christoph und Grupe, Gisela (2019): Diet and species-specific oxygen isotope relationship and isotope spacing between structural carbonate and phosphate in archaeological mammalian bones. In: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, Bd. 11, Nr. 6: S. 2467-2487

Abstract

Stable oxygen isotopes of bone structural carbonate (O-18(carbonate)) and phosphate (O-18(phosphate)) are frequently used for paleoclimatological and paleoenvironmental studies. In several studies, the more conveniently measureable O-18(carbonate) values are measured, and O-18(phosphate) values are approximated according to published regressions. We studied a variety of individuals (n=101) of different wild and domesticated mammal species (n=19) from the Viking Haithabu and medieval Schleswig sites in Northern Germany and demonstrated that a generalized relationship between O-18(carbonate) and O-18(phosphate) with a fixed value for oxygen isotope spacing (O-18) is potentially error-prone. The O-18 values of our data set differ considerably from the commonly applied, fixed value of about 9 parts per thousand with values ranging from 3.8 to 8.1 parts per thousand (=6.1 parts per thousand +/- 0.9 parts per thousand). Statistically significant differences in the O-18 values and marked differences in linear models established for the relationship between O-18(carbonate) and O-18(phosphate) are related to species-specific diet and physiology. Therefore, such species-specific particularities must not be neglected. We conclude that this variability does no longer permit an approximation of oxygen isotope values of bone phosphate from carbonate, because O-18(phosphate) values approximated in such a way are highly error-prone. Parallel analyses of both O-18(carbonate) and O-18(phosphate) values are therefore indispensable.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Biologie > Department Biologie I
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
• ISSN: 1866-9557
• Sprache: Englisch