The Use and Abuse of Trace Elements for Paleodietary Research

Variation of Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca Response in Human Hard Tissue from Archaeological Series

“…The ratio of strontium (Sr) or barium (Ba) to calcium (Ca) fixed into human bone and teeth hydroxyapatite is used to understand the dietary trophic level of past human populations (Burton, Price 2002). Higher concentrations of Sr and Ba, and thus higher Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios, observed in the skeletal tissue are the remarkable indicator of a plant-based diet (Burton 1996).…”

“…The simple linearity between diet and alkaline elements incorporated in skeletal tissue is highly biased by: a) diagenetic contamination; b) local geographic environment; c) isotopic heterogeneity of a plant-based diet; d) individual variability; and c) a mixed diet (Burton, Price 2002). Diagenetic contamination is caused by many agents, e.g.…”

“…Diagenetic contamination is caused by many agents, e.g. chemical, mechanical, biological and physical factors (Burton, Price 2002) and the process of diagenesis consists of several mechanisms: dissolution, precipitation, absorption and recrystallization. Elevated levels of Fe, Mn, Si, Al and Ba in fossil teeth indicate the formation of secondary minerals (Kohn et al 1999;Patterson et al 1991).…”

On the possibilities of ICP-AES for analysis of archaeological bones

“…The concentrations of elements in archaeological bones, especially trace elements, can serve as useful indicators of dietary habits, nutrition and disease [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The variations in the concentration of elements such as Sr, Ba, Cu, Zn, V may be used to estimate the type of food and its importance in the daily diet.…”

“…Several analytical techniques are used in the analysis of archaeological bones: (a) inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) (see [3,5,10]); (b) atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) (see [11][12][13][14]); (c) instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) [see [15][16][17][18]; (d) inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) [19], (e) and more often the combinations of AAS/ICP-AES [20][21][22][23] and ICP-AES/XRF [1,2,7]. The ICP-AES technique (see [1][2][3]) is gaining popularity in the analysis of bone materials.…”