Strontium isotope ratios related to childhood mobility: Revisiting sampling strategies of the calcined human pars petrosa ossis temporalis

More than urns: A multi-method pipeline for analyzing cremation burials

Burial rites of archaeological populations are frequently interpreted based on cremated remains of the human body and the urn they were deposited in. In comparison to inhumations, information about the deceased is much more limited and dependent on fragmentation, selection of body regions, taphonomic processes, and excavation techniques. So far, little attention has been paid to the context in which urns are buried. In this study, we combined archaeological techniques with anthropology, computed tomography, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, geochemistry and isotopic approaches and conducted a detailed analysis on a case study of two Late Bronze Age urns from St. Pölten, Austria (c. 1430 and 1260 cal. BCE). The urns were recovered en-bloc and CT-scanned before the micro-excavation. Osteological and strontium isotope analysis revealed that the cremated remains comprised a young adult female and a child that died at the age of 10-12 years. Both individuals had been subject to physiological stress and were likely local. Animal bones burnt at different temperatures suggested different depositional pathways into the urn and pit as part of the pyre, food offerings, and unintentional settlement debris. Eight wild plant and five crop plant species appeared as part of the local landscape, as food offerings and fire accelerants. Sediment chemistry suggests that pyre remains were deposited around the urns during burial. Multi-element geochemistry, archaeobotany, and zooarchaeology provide insights into the Late Bronze Age environment, the process of cremation, the gathering of bones and final funerary deposition.

Sr analyses from only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in Britain illuminate early Viking journey with horse and dog across the North Sea

The barrow cemetery at Heath Wood, Derbyshire, is the only known Viking cremation cemetery in the British Isles. It dates to the late ninth century and is associated with the over-wintering of the Viking Great Army at nearby Repton in AD 873-4. Only the cremated remains of three humans and of a few animals are still available for research. Using strontium content and isotope ratios of these three people and three animals-a horse, a dog and a possible pig-this paper investigates the individuals' residential origins. The results demonstrate that strontium isotope ratios of one of the adults and the non-adult are compatible with a local origin, while the other adult and all three animals are not. In conjunction with the archaeological context, the strontium isotope ratios indicate that these individuals most likely originated from the area of the Baltic Shield-and that they died soon after arrival in Britain. This discovery constitutes the first solid scientific evidence that Scandinavians crossed the North Sea with horses, dogs and other animals as early as the ninth century AD.

Pilot study on provenance tracing of cocoons via strontium isotopes

Isotopic analysis has seen significant use in archaeological sciences to date objects, determine their origin, and depict ancient human dietary habits. However, the potential of this technique for provenance studies of ancient silks remains underdeveloped. In this study, we applied Sr isotopic ratios to the provenance tracing of silkworm cocoons. We investigated the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of cocoons from seven Chinese provinces to determine their regional differences. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of mulberry leaves and cocoons in Shandong and Sichuan were analyzed and silkworms were cultured at four sampling locations in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, to determine isotopic signature relationships between mulberry leaves and cocoons. Those results showed that the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signature of cocoons not only reflected regional differences, but also was related to the type of soil in each sampling location from which the samples were collected. It is suggested that the Sr isotope ratios was able to be an effective tool for the provenance tracing of cocoons. The Mann-Whitney test result indicated no significant differences in isotopic ratios between mulberry leaves and cocoons. In other words, mulberry leaves may predict mean isotopic values in the cocoons. No clear evidence of Sr isotopic fractionation was found in our control experiments. However, mulberry leaves and cocoons from Sichuan did not show significant correlation between them, overall reducing the predictive power of the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of mulberry leaf for provenance studies of cocoons. Finally, in order to improve the accuracy of Sr isotope ratios for the provenance tracing of cocoons, more ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr data should be complemented and the relationship needs to be established between Sr isotope information in more kinds of proxies and cocoons.

Let’s make a mess, maybe no one will notice. The impact of bioturbation activity on the urn fill condition

The research was carried out at the cremation cemetery of the Lusatian culture in Wtórek, Ostrów Wielkopolski district, Wielkopolska province, Poland. Contrary to the so-far-studied topics related to the CT imaging of burnt bones and their virtual exploration, we concentrated on the analysis of the structures formed by the soil fauna activity in the fills of urns and additional vessels, and reconstruction of the dynamics of the ecosystem variability within the cemetery area based on thereof. We also demonstrated the impact of macrofaunal activity on stratigraphy and bone fragmentation. From the total of 222 excavated burials in 18 urns and one additional vessel, the remains of macrofauna or its bioturbation activity were identified. Out of 19 vessels subjected to CT examinations, traces of macrofaunal activity were demonstrated in 13: in five vessels animal bioturbative activity was not observed and in one, observations was impossible (due to significant metal-related artifacts). In two vessels both macrofaunal remains and traces of activity were identified. Discovered bioturbations were associated with specific species or genera. Nests or their parts of the genus Geotrupes sp. beetles were the most frequently observed traces of macrofaunal activity. Tunnels and aestivation chambers of earthworms and chambers of the genus Harpalus sp. beetles filled with Setaria sp. caryopses were discovered. The chitinous parts of other insects and the humerus bones of the vole of the genus Microtus sp. were also identified. It was shown, especially due to the non-destructive method, that rodents activity had the most destructive effect on the bone stratigraphy as well as on the movement and fragmentation of the burnt bones. The chances of visualizing bioturbations decreased with time since their creation. The process of disappearance of traces of macrofaunal activity concerned both traces of rodent activity and nests set up by Geotrupes sp. and other species.

Strontium isotope analyses of archaeological cremated remains – new data and perspectives

Cremated human remains are commonly found in the archaeological records, especially in Europe during the Metal Ages and the Roman period. Due to the high temperatures reached during cremation (up to 1000°C), most biological information locked in the isotopic composition of different tissues is heavily altered or even destroyed. The recent demonstration that strontium isotope ratio (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) remain unaltered during cremation and are even very resistant to post-burial alterations (which is not the case in unburned bone), opened new possibility for palaeomobility studies of ancient populations that practice cremations as a funerary ritual. This paper summarizes strontium isotopic data produced over the last decade which is then deposited on the open-access platform IsoArcH (https://isoarch.eu/) for any interested parties to use. It is the first time isotopic data on cremated remains is introduced in this database, significantly extending its impact on the scientific community.

Assessing the preservation of biogenic strontium isotope ratios (87 Sr/86 Sr) in the pars petrosa ossis temporalis of unburnt human skeletal remains: A case study from Saba

RATIONALE

Strontium isotope (⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr) analysis of skeletal remains has become a powerful tool in archaeological studies of human migration and mobility. Owing to its resistance to post-mortem alteration, dental enamel is the preferred sampling material used for ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr analysis in bioarchaeological provenance research, although recent studies have demonstrated that cremated bone is also generally resistant to diagenesis. This paper presents the results of a pilot study exploring the potential of unburnt petrous bone (pars petrosa) as a reservoir of biogenic (diagenetically unaltered) strontium, as the otic capsule or bony labyrinth within the petrous bone is extremely dense and is thought to be unable to remodel after early childhood, potentially providing an alternative for dental enamel.

METHODS

From an individual from a colonial-era (18th century) site on the island of Saba in the Caribbean for whom previous enamel ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr results had indicated non-local origins, multiple locations (n = 4) on the petrous were sampled and measured for strontium isotope composition. Saba (13 km² ) has been extensively mapped for baseline strontium isotopes (n = 50) with ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr varying from ca 0.7065 to 0.7090, whereas enamel ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr (n = 3) ranged from 0.7104 to 0.7112.

RESULTS

All four petrous ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr ratios (0.7111-0.7122) are consistently and considerably higher than the local bioavailable range, and very similar to the enamel ⁸⁷ Sr/⁸⁶ Sr. These results provide initial evidence that unburnt petrous bones may preserve biogenic strontium, at least in this specific burial context.

CONCLUSIONS

While more research in diverse burial conditions is needed to validate this observation, if confirmed, it would have broader implications for sample selection strategies in bioarchaeological studies using the strontium isotope method.

Salorno—Dos de la Forca (Adige Valley, Northern Italy): A unique cremation site of the Late Bronze Age

The archaeological site of Salorno—Dos de la Forca (Bozen, Alto Adige) provides one of the rarest and most significant documentations of cremated human remains preserved from an ancient cremation platform (ustrinum). The pyre area, located along the upper Adige valley, is dated to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1150–950 BCE) and has yielded an unprecedented quantity of cremated human remains (about 63.5 kg), along with burnt animal bone fragments, shards of pottery, and other grave goods made in bronze and animal bone/antler. This study focuses on the bioanthropological analysis of the human remains and discusses the formation of the unusual burnt deposits at Salorno through comparisons with modern practices and protohistoric and contemporaneous archaeological deposits. The patterning of bone fragmentation and commingling was investigated using spatial data recorded during excavation which, along with the bioanthropological and archaeological data, are used to model and test two hypotheses: Salorno—Dos de la Forca would be the result of A) repeated primary cremations left in situ; or B) of residual material remaining after select elements were removed for internment in urns or burials to unknown depositional sites. By modelling bone weight and demographic data borrowed from regional affine contexts, the authors suggest that this cremation site may have been used over several generations by a small community–perhaps a local elite. With a quantity of human remains that exceeds that of any other coeval contexts interpreted as ustrina, Salorno may be the product of a complex series of rituals in which the human cremains did not receive individual burial, but were left in situ, in a collective/communal place of primary combustion, defining an area of repeated funeral ceremonies involving offerings and libations across a few generations. This would represent a new typological and functional category that adds to the variability of mortuary customs at the end of the Bronze Age in the Alpine are, at a time in which “globalising” social trends may have stimulated the definition of more private identities.

Human mobility in a Bronze Age Vatya 'urnfield' and the life history of a high-status woman

In this study, we present osteological and strontium isotope data of 29 individuals (26 cremations and 3 inhumations) from Szigetszentmiklós-Ürgehegy, one of the largest Middle Bronze Age cemeteries in Hungary. The site is located in the northern part of the Csepel Island (a few kilometres south of Budapest) and was in use between c. 2150 and 1500 BC, a period that saw the rise, the apogee, and, ultimately, the collapse of the Vatya culture in the plains of Central Hungary. The main aim of our study was to identify variation in mobility patterns among individuals of different sex/age/social status and among individuals treated with different burial rites using strontium isotope analysis. Changes in funerary rituals in Hungary have traditionally been associated with the crises of the tell cultures and the introgression of newcomers from the area of the Tumulus Culture in Central Europe around 1500 BC. Our results show only slight discrepancies between inhumations and cremations, as well as differences between adult males and females. The case of the richly furnished grave n. 241 is of particular interest. The urn contains the cremated bones of an adult woman and two 7 to 8-month-old foetuses, as well as remarkably prestigious goods. Using 87Sr/86Sr analysis of different dental and skeletal remains, which form in different life stages, we were able to reconstruct the potential movements of this high-status woman over almost her entire lifetime, from birth to her final days. Our study confirms the informative potential of strontium isotopes analyses performed on different cremated tissues. From a more general, historical perspective, our results reinforce the idea that exogamic practices were common in Bronze Age Central Europe and that kinship ties among high-rank individuals were probably functional in establishing or strengthening interconnections, alliances, and economic partnerships.