Ancient Beringian paleodiets revealed through multiproxy stable isotope analyses
Author
Halffman, Carrin MPotter, Ben A
McKinney, Holly J
Tsutaya, Takumi
Finney, Bruce P
Kemp, Brian M
Bartelink, Eric J
Wooller, Matthew J
Buckley, Michael
Clark, Casey T
Johnson, Jessica J
Bingham, Brittany L
Lanoë, François B
Sattler, Robert A
Reuther, Joshua D
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Bur Appl Res AnthropolIssue Date
2020-09-04
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AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCECitation
Halffman, C. M., Potter, B. A., McKinney, H. J., Tsutaya, T., Finney, B. P., Kemp, B. M., ... & Reuther, J. D. (2020). Ancient Beringian paleodiets revealed through multiproxy stable isotope analyses. Science Advances, 6(36), eabc1968.Journal
SCIENCE ADVANCESRights
Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The earliest Native Americans have often been portrayed as either megafaunal specialists or generalist foragers, but this debate cannot be resolved by studying the faunal record alone. Stable isotope analysis directly reveals the foods consumed by individuals. We present multi-tissue isotope analyses of two Ancient Beringian infants from the Upward Sun River site (USR), Alaska (similar to 11,500 years ago). Models of fetal bone turnover combined with seasonally-sensitive taxa show that the carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of USR infant bone collagen reflects maternal diets over the summer. Using comparative faunal isotope data, we demonstrate that although terrestrial sources dominated maternal diets, salmon was also important, supported by carbon isotope analysis of essential amino acids and bone bioapatite. Tooth enamel samples indicate increased salmon use between spring and summer. Our results do not support either strictly megafaunal specialists or generalized foragers but indicate that Ancient Beringian diets were complex and seasonally structured.Note
Open access journalISSN
2375-2548PubMed ID
32917621Version
Final published versionae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1126/sciadv.abc1968
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
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