Expanding on incremental dentin methodology to investigate childhood and infant feeding practices on Taumako (southeast Solomon Islands)

Stantis, Chris; Buckley, Hallie R.; Commendador, Amy; Dudgeon, John

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2020.105294

Cited by 5 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Our main interpretation is that the higher densities of vascular pores in females suggest their bones received greater blood and nutrient supply than that of males 42 . Male frailty due to endemic disease, inferred from their younger mortality compared to females at Taumako 16 , 26 , may have contributed to this bone characteristic, which we discuss further below. Despite the greater density of cortical pores in females, neither the osteon population density nor the geometric properties of secondary osteons differed statistically between the sexes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although Taumako lies directly east of the boundary with Near Oceania, the archaeological remains from Taumako display a high prevalence of skeletal lesions indicative of endemic yaws and iron-deficiency anaemia (potentially exacerbated by high malaria pathogen loads) 23 – 25 . This is in addition to large variation in stature, age- and sex-specific dietary practices relating to social status 17 , 20 , 26 , and tendency for males to die younger than females at Taumako when compared with neighbouring Tonga in western Polynesia 23 , 24 . All of these findings suggest experiences of population-wide physiological stress at Taumako.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community

Miszkiewicz

Buckley

Feldman

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Remodelling is a fundamental biological process involved in the maintenance of bone physiology and function. We know that a range of health and lifestyle factors can impact this process in living and past societies, but there is a notable gap in bone remodelling data for populations from the Pacific Islands. We conducted the first examination of femoral cortical histology in 69 individuals from ca. 440–150 BP Taumako in Solomon Islands, a remote ‘Polynesian Outlier’ island in Melanesia. We tested whether bone remodelling indicators differed between age groups, and biological sex validated using ancient DNA. Bone vascular canal and osteon size, vascular porosity, and localised osteon densities, corrected by femoral robusticity indices were examined. Females had statistically significantly higher vascular porosities when compared to males, but osteon densities and ratios of canal-osteon (~ 8%) did not differ between the sexes. Our results indicate that, compared to males, localised femoral bone tissue of the Taumako females did not drastically decline with age, contrary to what is often observed in modern populations. However, our results match findings in other archaeological samples—a testament to past female bone physiology resilience, also now observed in the Pacific region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community

Miszkiewicz

Buckley

Feldman

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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“…As an improved variation on the original ‘anatomical regions’ approach, the micro‐slices approach takes horizontal slices of dentine perpendicular to the growth axis. There are several minor alternatives within this methodology, where some studies use the whole tooth, 16,17 and some cut the tooth longitudinally into two or more portions and take slices from only part of a tooth 3,11,18–20 . There are certain benefits and drawbacks to both sub‐approaches.…”

Section: Sampling Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, the most commonly analysed isotope systems in primary dentine have been carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N). Variations in δ 13 C and δ 15 N values have been used to answer questions such as weaning (in both humans and non-human mammals), [1][2][3] mobility and trading, 4 animal husbandry practices, 5 and early physiological stress. 6 New studies have recently demonstrated the potential of including the analysis of sulfur (δ 34 S) values in serial approaches to help elucidate childhood mobility patterns and/or feeding practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro‐punches versus micro‐slices for serial sampling of human dentine: Striking a balance between improved temporal resolution and measuring additional isotope systems

Cheung

Fernández-Crespo

Mion

et al. 2022

Rapid Comm Mass Spectrometry

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Rationale The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the application of serial sampling of human dentine in archaeology. Rapid development in the field has provided many improvements in the methodology, in terms of both time resolution as well as the ability to integrate more isotope systems in the analysis. This study provides a comparison of two common sampling approaches, allowing researchers to select the most suitable approach for addressing specific research questions. Methods Two common approaches for sequential sampling of human dentine (micro‐punches and micro‐slices) are compared in terms of viability and efficacy. Using archaeological deciduous second molars and permanent first molars, this study demonstrates how the two approaches capture aspects of the weaning process in different ways. In addition, different aspects related to the extraction protocols, such as the thickness of the central slide and the solubilisation step, are also evaluated. Results While both approaches show similar intra‐tooth isotopic patterns, the micro‐punches approach is preferable for research that requires a very fine temporal resolution, while the micro‐slices approach is best for research where δ 34 S values are needed, or when the samples are poorly preserved. In addition, the solubilisation step has a large effect on collagen yield, and, to a lesser extent, on isotopic compositions. Therefore, it is important to ensure that only samples that have undergone the same pre‐treatment protocol are directly compared. Conclusions We present the pros and cons of the two micro‐sampling approaches and offer possible mitigation strategies to address some of the most important issues related to each approach.

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“…The recent development of high temporal resolution microsequential isotopic analysis of dentine (e.g., Beaumont et al 2013;Czermak et al 2020;Eerkens et al 2011;Stantis et al 2021) has permitted the reconstruction of past early life-histories with sub-annual resolution (e.g., Fernández-Crespo et al 2020;Montgomery et al 2013), potentially teasing apart the effects of diet and physiological stress at an individual level (e.g., Beaumont and Montgomery 2016;King et al 2018;O'Donoghue et al 2021). This is possible because primary dentine grows incrementally (Nanci 2008) and, in contrast to bone, does not remodel once formed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “post-weanling’s conundrum”: exploring the impact of infant and child feeding practices on early mortality in the Bronze Age burial cave of Moro de Alins, north-eastern Iberia, through stable isotope analysis

Fernández-Crespo

Czermak

Ordoño³

et al. 2022

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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The relationship between infant and child feeding practices and early mortality is difficult to address in past societies. Here, stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope measurements of bulk bone and sequential dentine samples of deciduous second and/or permanent first molars of four younger children, one older child, one late adolescent, and two young adults (n = 8) from Moro de Alins cave, north-eastern Iberia, are used to explore the potential impact of early-life nutrition on mortality in the Bronze Age. Isotope results are compatible with generally short exclusive breastfeeding and standard weaning periods compared to other pre-modern populations. However, there are differences in exclusive breastfeeding mean δ13C values and in Δ13C trophic shifts between exclusive breastfeeding and immediate post-weaning isotope values for those individuals who survived into adolescence and adulthood and those who did not. While the former seem to be consistent with trophic distances published for modern mother–infant pairs, the latter are above most of them. This may suggest that individuals who consumed similar foods to their mothers or suffered from less physiological stress during or after weaning had greater chances of survival during early childhood and beyond. Post-weaning seems to have been a particularly stressful period of life, where a number of instances of patterns of opposing isotopic covariance compatible with catabolic changes, often preceding death among non-survivors, are detected. This outcome shows the key role of nutritional and/or physiological status in early-life morbidity and mortality among partially and especially fully weaned children from pre-antibiotic, pre-vaccination, and poor sanitation contexts and proposes that adult survival is rooted in early life experiences, in keeping with the developmental origins of health and disease.

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Expanding on incremental dentin methodology to investigate childhood and infant feeding practices on Taumako (southeast Solomon Islands)

Cited by 5 publications

References 91 publications

Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community

Female bone physiology resilience in a past Polynesian Outlier community

Micro‐punches versus micro‐slices for serial sampling of human dentine: Striking a balance between improved temporal resolution and measuring additional isotope systems

The “post-weanling’s conundrum”: exploring the impact of infant and child feeding practices on early mortality in the Bronze Age burial cave of Moro de Alins, north-eastern Iberia, through stable isotope analysis

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