Interpreting Past Human Diets Using Stable Isotope Mixing Models
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Interpreting Past Human Diets Using Stable Isotope Mixing Models Christina Cheung 1,2
& Paul
Szpak 3
Accepted: 26 October 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Palaeodietary reconstruction using stable isotope analysis is becoming increasingly common, as is the practice of using mixing models to quantify ancient dietary compositions. However, many archaeologists may be unaware of the complexities and pitfalls of stable isotope mixing models (SIMMs). This study serves to provide an overview of the basic principles of SIMMs, evaluates the performances of several of the most commonly used SIMM software packages, and offers some field-specific guidelines for the application of SIMMs in archaeological contexts. We present a series of simulated and published archaeological data to demonstrate and evaluate the different types of SIMMs. We compared the outputs of linear mixing models, simple probabilistic models (IsoSource), and conditional probabilistic models (FRUITS and MixSIAR). Our results show that each mixing model has its pros and cons, and archaeologists should select the best model based on a number of factors, including familiarity with coding languages, sample characteristics (i.e. sample size and normality) of the consumer groups, and research questions. Keywords Stable isotopes . Palaeodietary reconstruction . Mixing models
* Christina Cheung [email protected]
1
EA – Eco-anthropologie (UMR 7206), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
2
UMR 7269, CNRS, Minist Culture, LAMPEA, Aix Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France
3
Department of Anthropology, Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, Ontario K9L 0G2, Canada
Cheung and Szpak
Introduction The practice of measuring the ratios of different stable isotopes of the same element in body tissues to answer various physiological questions, including nutrition-related ones, began as early as the 1930s (Krogh 1937; Schoenheimer and Rittenberg 1940). The use of stable isotope analysis in archaeology to reconstruct palaeodietary practices, however, did not start until the 1960s (Hall 1967), and by the late 1990s, it had become routine in archaeological research (reviewed by Katzenberg 2008; Schoeninger and Moore 1992). A recent study conducted by Szpak et al. (2017) inventoried all the published archaeological studies involving original bulk stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analysis between 1980 and 2015. Their survey revealed that the number of publications has exponentially increased from only 15 between 1980 and 1989 to 255 between 2010 and 2015. Early studies chiefly utilized stable carbon isotope analysis to detect the consumption of certain isotopically distinctive resources, such as maize or marine foods, in past diets (Bender et al. 1981; Chisholm et al. 1983; Hobson and Collier 1984; Lynott et al. 1986). This approach was revolutionary because isotopic analyses provided a means of assessing the relative import
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