Multiproxy bioarchaeological data reveals interplay between growth, diet and population dynamics across the transition to farming in the central Mediterranean

Abstract

The transition to farming brought on a series of important changes in human society, lifestyle, diet and health. The human bioarchaeology of the agricultural transition has received much attention, however, relatively few studies have directly tested the interrelationship between individual lifestyle factors and their implications for understanding life history changes among the first farmers. We investigate the interplay between skeletal growth, diet, physical activity and population size across 30,000 years in the central Mediterranean through a ‘big data’ cross-analysis of osteological data related to stature (n = 361), body mass (n = 334) and long bone biomechanics (n = 481), carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes (n = 1986 human, n = 475 animal) and radiocarbon dates (n = 5263). We present the observed trends on a continuous timescale in order to avoid grouping our data into assigned ‘time periods’, thus achieving greater resolution and chronological control over our analysis. The results identify important changes in human life history strategies associated with the first farmers, but also highlight the long-term nature of these trends in the millennia either side of the agricultural transition. The integration of these different data is an important step towards disentangling the complex relationship between demography, diet and health, and reconstruct life history changes within a southern European context. We believe the methodological approach adopted here has broader global implications for bioarchaeological studies of human adaptation more generally.

Hydrochemical Evolution and Nitrate Source Identification of River Water and Groundwater in Huashan Watershed, China

“…HCO 3 − acts as the dominant anion and Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ are the dominant cations for these water samples, and the hydrochemical types are all HCO 3 -Ca and HCO 3 -Ca•Mg (Figure 2). ainability 2024, 16 The precipitation, river water, and groundwater are all freshwat values of 20.66 mg/L, 230.10 mg/L and 313.89 mg/L, respectively (Tabl the dominant anion and Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ are the dominant cations for th and the hydrochemical types are all HCO3-Ca and HCO3-Ca•Mg (Figu…”

“…Consequently, the combined use of δ 15 N-NO 3 − and δ 18 O-NO 3 − values has become a common approach for nitrate source tracing [14,15]. The positive correlation between δ 15 N-NO 3 − and δ 18 O-NO 3 − values (∆δ 15 N/∆δ 18 O ≈ 1.3~1.9) can also effectively indicate denitrification processes [3,16]. Currently, water environment management is shifting from traditional static management to dynamic management based on the dynamic characteristics of the pollutant source emissions [17].…”