权益分类	功能权益	普通用户	{{item.name}}会员
{{category.name}}	{{benefitItem.name}}

Calcium isotopes: a new tool to study the spread of dairying in prehistory

钙同位素：研究史前乳制品传播的新工具

基本信息

批准号：
NE/E003613/1
负责人：
Robert Hedges
金额：
$ 44.6万
依托单位：
University of Oxford
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2007
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2007 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FE003613%2F1
关键词：
Calcium isotopes new tool study

项目摘要

This project is to apply a new way of analysing bone, in order to learn how milk, and dairying generally, became so important in Western human diet. Our food has been profoundly changed by two 'revolutions'; the invention of agriculture starting about 10,000 years ago, and of industrial scale food production, starting about 100 years ago. Milk and its products remains a very important part of our diet, and also provides our major source of calcium, but this is true only for the people and areas where it was developed in prehistoric times (in Europe, India, and parts of Africa, but not, e.g. in China, America, or Oceania). So we are focussing on the Neolithic period, the cultural epoch of the discovery and spread of agriculture in Europe. Some evidence already exists for dairying during the Neolithic (from pottery remains and from animal bones), but we do not know how nutritionally or economically important it was or became. We do know that with agriculture, the Neolithic saw great demographic growth, leading to social change and the rise of towns; and we also know that milk consumption was biologically important enough for Europeans to become genetically selected for the ability to digest lactose after infancy. Our method depends on measuring the abundance ratio of the calcium isotopes found in nature. As calcium flows through food chains, its distinctive isotope ratio can be used as a tracer. We have very recently shown that calcium in milk has a small but clearly different isotope ratio from other local dietary sources of calcium (mainly from plants); and our results on a small number of archaeological bones confirms that this difference shows up in Neolithic and later human bones where dairying seems likely, but not in earlier bones. The next step is to test the method very much more widely, understand its strengths and limitations, and learn how best to apply it to quantifying how dairying impacted on human diet and nutrition during prehistory. We then can make a proper study of milk consumption on several sites, and relate this to other types of dietary information from them (e.g. of types of protein consumption). We also want to investigate the potential of applying calcium isotope measurements beyond this main study, to such related issues as learning about the timing of nursing and weaning (the method applies to taking in maternal milk as well as farmed animal milk), as this also can tell us about the influences for human population growth. An exciting prospect is that it might be applicable to studying the development of Early Man in Africa . Other plans include seeing if the method works for cremated bone, as these are the main remains at some periods.

这个项目是应用一种分析骨骼的新方法，以了解牛奶和一般的乳制品如何在西方人的饮食中变得如此重要。我们的食物已经因为两个“革命”而发生了深刻的变化：农业的发明始于大约一万年前，工业规模的粮食生产始于大约一百年前。牛奶及其制品仍然是我们饮食中非常重要的一部分，也是我们钙的主要来源，但这只适用于史前时期发展牛奶的人和地区(在欧洲、印度和非洲部分地区，但不包括在中国、美洲或大洋洲)。因此，我们关注的是新石器时代，这是欧洲农业发现和传播的文化时代。在新石器时代(从陶器残骸和动物骨骼中)已经存在一些关于乳制品的证据，但我们不知道它在营养或经济上的重要性。我们知道，随着农业的发展，新石器时代出现了巨大的人口增长，导致了社会变革和城镇的崛起；我们还知道，牛奶消费在生物学上足够重要，以至于欧洲人在婴儿时期消化乳糖的能力被基因选择。我们的方法依赖于测量自然界中发现的钙同位素的丰度比。当钙在食物链中流动时，其独特的同位素比率可用作示踪剂。我们最近发现，牛奶中的钙与当地其他饮食来源(主要来自植物)中的钙有很小的同位素比率，但明显不同；我们对少量考古骨骼的结果证实，这种差异在新石器时代和后来的人类骨骼中表现出来，这些骨骼可能会挤奶，但在更早的骨骼中不会。下一步是更广泛地测试这种方法，了解它的优点和局限性，并学习如何最好地应用它来量化史前时期奶制品对人类饮食和营养的影响。然后，我们可以在几个网站上对牛奶消费进行适当的研究，并将其与来自这些网站的其他类型的饮食信息(例如，蛋白质消费的类型)联系起来。我们还想调查钙同位素测量在这项主要研究之外应用于相关问题的可能性，如了解哺乳和断奶的时间(该方法适用于摄入母乳和饲养的动物奶)，因为这也可以告诉我们对人类人口增长的影响。一个令人兴奋的前景是，它可能适用于研究非洲早期人类的发展。其他计划包括观察这种方法是否适用于火化的骨骼，因为在某些时期，这些骨骼是主要的遗骸。