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

该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从新石器时代到罗马时代的变化。我们选择了一个研究充分的地区，有详细的考古知识，对许多遗址来说，有良好的环境背景记录。我们建议用化学方法分析来自32个被充分研究过的地点的大量家畜的骨头。我们将测量“稳定同位素”，也就是动物食物的原子，这些原子留在它们的骨头里。我们知道，稳定同位素的微小变化是由于饮食的变化，而饮食的变化可能来自管理的变化，或者食物-植物同位素的变化。植物的同位素不能直接测量，但确实依赖于其环境的细微变化。实际上，虽然我们对几种类型的环境影响有所了解，但我们并不清楚和准确地知道环境如何反映在动物骨骼同位素值中；但我们确实知道，不同地点的动物骨骼同位素显示出有趣的变化模式和相关性，在一个地点随着时间的推移，或在物种之间，或在不同环境下的地点之间。这项研究是为了描述在我们可以将结果与已知环境联系起来的环境中发生的模式，然后用它来扩展我们对这些地点的了解。化学同位素和环境资料的这种结合以前从未有过，也许是因为它需要大规模才能成功，并且依赖于同位素和环境方法方面的大量经验。我们希望了解的信息包括：-养猪业何时以及为什么发生了变化，然后它们是被喂养更多的家庭垃圾，乳清，还是只是在更近的人类粪坑里根深蒂固？是否有迹象表明土壤中的氮逐渐耗尽？是否可以检测到施肥信号？牛（特别是）是否有证据表明它们的管理从一个更茂密的环境转移到一个更开放的环境？在山谷洪泛区洪水增加的地方，这是否对植物和骨骼同位素有明显的影响（如所怀疑的那样）？我们在研究的一个地点看到的氮同位素的变化真的是由于干草的种植，因此在草地上豆科植物（氮同位素比值值较低）的增加吗？此外，我们希望通过获得比目前任何人都更有针对性的结果，我们将看到同位素组成的新模式，从而对从同位素中可以学到什么有新的想法。这对于理解以动物为食的人类的骨骼是如何获得其同位素组成的也很重要，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.