Measuring the isotopic landscape: bone chemistry, the environment, and ancient agriculture in the Thames Valley

本提案旨在开发更深入、更详细的方法来了解英格兰南部的农业，以及它是如何从新石器时代到罗马时代发生变化的。我们选择了一个经过充分研究的地区，拥有详细的考古知识，并且对于许多遗址，都有良好的环境背景记录。我们建议从32个研究良好的地点，从统计学上稳健的数量的驯养动物的骨骼进行化学分析。我们将测量“稳定同位素”，即保留在骨骼中的实际动物食物的原子。我们知道，稳定同位素的微小变化是由于饮食的变化，这可能来自管理的变化，或食物-植物同位素的变化。植物的同位素无法直接测量，但确实取决于其环境的微妙变化。实际上，尽管我们了解了几种类型的环境影响，但我们并不清楚确切地知道环境是如何反映在动物骨同位素值中的;但我们确实知道，来自不同地点的动物骨同位素显示出有趣的变化和相关性模式，在一个地点随着时间的推移，或在物种之间，或在不同环境中的地点之间。这项研究是为了确定在我们可以将结果与已知环境联系起来的环境中发生了什么样的模式，然后用它来扩展我们对这些网站的了解。这种化学同位素和环境信息的结合以前没有做过，也许是因为它需要大规模的成功，并依赖于同位素和环境方法学的大量经验。我们希望了解的信息包括：-养猪业何时以及为什么改变，然后他们被喂养更多的生活垃圾，乳清，还是只是扎根在更近的人类垃圾坑？是否有任何迹象表明土壤中的氮逐渐耗尽，以及是否可以检测到施肥信号？牛（特别是）是否有证据表明他们的管理从一个更树木繁茂的环境转移到一个更开放的环境？在山谷洪泛区发生洪水增加的地方，这对植物和骨骼同位素有可识别的影响吗？在我们研究的一个地点，我们看到的氮同位素的变化真的是由于干草的种植，因此草地中豆科植物（具有较低的氮同位素比值）的增加吗？此外，我们希望通过获得比迄今为止任何人都更集中的结果，我们将看到同位素组成的新模式，这将导致关于从同位素中可以学到什么的新想法。这对于理解吃动物的人类的骨骼如何获得同位素组成也很重要，因此对于理解如何重建古代人类的饮食也很重要。

SummaryThis proposal is to develop deeper, more detailed, ways to learn about farming in Southern England and how it changed from Neolithic to Roman times. We have chosen a well researched region with detailed archaeological knowledge and, for many sites, a good record of the environmental context. We propose to analyse chemically the bones from a statistically robust number of domesticated animals from 32 well studied sites. We will measure 'stable isotopes', that is atoms of the actual animals' food, which remain in their bones. We know that slight variations in stable isotopes are due to changes in diet, which can come about from changes in management, or changes in food-plant isotopes. Plant isotopes cannot be measured directly, but do depend on subtle changes in their environment. Actually, although we have an understanding of several types of environmental influence, we do not know clearly and exactly how the environment is reflected in animal bone isotope values; but we do know that animal bone isotopes from various sites show intriguing patterns of variation and correlation, in a site over time, or between species, or between sites in different settings. This research is to characterise what sorts of pattern occur in settings where we can relate the results to known environments, and then to use it to extend our knowledge of these sites. This combination of chemical isotopy and environmental information has not been made before, perhaps because it requires to be at a large scale to be successful, and relies on a lot of experience of both isotopic and environmental methodologies.The kind of information we hope to learn includes the following:- when and why did pig husbandry change, and were they then fed more household scraps, milk whey, or just rooted about nearer human refuse pits ? Is there any sign that soils became progressively depleted in nitrogen, and can a manuring signal be detected ? Do cattle (particularly) show evidence that their management moved from a more wooded to a more open environment ? Where increased flooding occurs in the valley floodplains, does this have a recognisable effect on plant and bone isotopes (as suspected) ? Is a change in the nitrogen isotope we have seen on one site we studied really due to the cultivation of hay and therefore an increase in leguminous species (which have lower nitrogen isotope ratio values) in the sward ?Furthermore, we hope that by getting much more focussed results than anyone has so far, we will see new patterns in the isotopic compositions that will lead to new thoughts about what can be learnt from isotopes. This also important for understanding how the bones of humans, who eat the animals, acquire their isotopic composition, and therefore for understanding how to reconstruct ancient human diet.