Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotope Analysis: Applications in Archaeological Research 3031322665, 9783031322662

Table of contents :
Preface
About the Book
Keywords
Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Contributors
Part I: History and Introduction
Chapter 1: Stable Isotope Analyses and Human Behavior: A Science Driven by Ideas and Tools
References
Chapter 2: Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotopic Analyses: Tools, Scales, and Questions
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Elements of Interest
2.2.1 Principles of Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis
2.2.2 Principles of Stable Nitrogen Isotope Analysis
2.2.3 Principles of Stable Sulfur Isotope Analysis
2.2.4 Principles of Stable Oxygen Isotope Analysis
2.2.5 Principles of Radiogenic Strontium Isotope Analysis
2.2.6 Other Isotopes of Anthropological Interest
2.3 Considerations for Isotopic Studies
2.3.1 Types of Tissue Analyzed
2.3.2 Diagenesis
2.3.3 Precision and Accuracy
2.3.4 Analysis and Interpretation
2.4 Scales of Analysis
2.5 Human Behaviors Investigated in This Volume
2.5.1 Paleodiet and Life History
2.5.2 Human-Animal Interactions
2.5.3 Human Mobility and Migration
2.6 Conclusion
References
Part II: Paleodiet and Life History
Chapter 3: Stable Isotope Evidence for Breastfeeding and Weaning Variables in Past Populations: Infant and Child Feeding in Ancient Siberian Foragers
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Mid-Holocene Foragers of Siberia’s Cis-Baikal
3.2.1 The Cis-Baikal
3.2.2 Early Versus Late Neolithic Populations
3.3 Part 1
3.3.1 Comparison of Weaning Cessation Age in Subsistence Groups
3.4 Part 2
3.4.1 Intra-population Weaning Variability
3.4.2 Weaning Initiation Age
3.4.3 Weaning Velocity and Regularity
3.4.4 Weaning Foods
3.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Human Paleodiet on Tutuila Island, American Samoa: Isotopic Evidence of Dietary Continuity Through the Medieval Warm Period-Little Ice Age Transition
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Archaeological Background and Chronology
4.2.1 Lapita Settlement by Austronesian Speaking Peoples, ca. 2900–2700 cal BP
4.2.2 Development of Polynesian Plainware Ceramics and Ancestral Polynesian Society, ca. 2700–1500 cal BP
4.2.3 The Dark Ages, Absence of Ceramic Technology, ca. 1500–1000 cal BP
4.2.4 Monument Building and Formation of the Traditional Samoan Village, ca. 1000–200 cal BP
4.3 Food Web
4.3.1 Stable Isotopes
4.3.2 Tutuila Food Web
4.4 Materials and Methods
4.4.1 Sex and Age Estimation
4.4.2 Isotope Sample Preparation
4.4.3 AMS Dating
4.5 Results
4.5.1 Dietary Variation
4.5.2 Temporal Patterns
4.6 Discussion
4.7 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Multi-isotopic Evidence for Prehispanic Maya Use of Multiple Subsistence Catchments at Caledonia, Cayo District, Belize
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Environmental and Archaeological Setting
5.3 Stable Isotope Analysis Background
5.4 Sample and Methods
5.5 Results
5.6 Discussion
5.7 Conclusions
References
Chapter 6: The Potential of Dental Calculus as a Novel Source of Biological Isotopic Data
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Composition of Dental Calculus
6.2.1 Formation of Dental Calculus
6.2.2 Mineral Composition of Dental Calculus
6.2.3 Organic Composition of Dental Calculus
6.3 Conventional Analysis of Collagen Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotopes in Paleodietary Reconstruction
6.3.1 Stable Isotope Analysis from Mineralized Tissues
6.3.2 Collagen and Bioapatite Carbon Stable Isotopes
6.3.3 Collagen Nitrogen Stable Isotopes
6.4 New Directions: Stable Isotope Analysis of Bulk Dental Calculus
6.4.1 Need for Alternatives to Collagen in Isotopic Analysis
6.4.2 Suitability of Dental Calculus for Isotopic Measurement
6.5 Paleodietary Inference from Dental Calculus
6.5.1 Initial Studies
6.5.2 Recent Studies Comparing Isotopic Values from Dental Calculus and Conventional Tissues
6.5.3 Potential Problems and Pitfalls in Isotopic Analysis of Dental Calculus
6.6 Case Study: Human Subsistence During the Basketmaker II Period at Grand Gulch
6.6.1 Study Design and Archaeological Context
6.6.2 Methods
6.6.3 Results
6.6.4 Discussion
6.7 Conclusion and Future Perspectives
References
Part III: Human-Animal Interactions
Chapter 7: Isotopes, Domestication, and Past Animal Husbandry Practices: A Review of the Formative Studies
7.1 Introduction
7.1.1 Domestication and Animal Husbandry
7.2 The Application of the Isotope Analysis to Study Animal Husbandry in the Past
7.2.1 Identification of Wild and Domestic Animals
7.2.2 Birth Seasonality and the Identification of Dairying
7.2.3 The Movement of Animals
7.2.4 Feeding and Animal Management
7.2.4.1 Asia
7.2.4.2 African Continent
7.2.4.3 Europe
7.2.4.4 The Americas
7.2.4.5 The Pacific Islands
7.3 Conclusions
References
Chapter 8: Human-Animal Interactions in the Pre-colonial Americas: Insights from Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis in Terrestrial Ecosystems
8.2.1 Stable Isotopes of Carbon
8.2.2 Stable Isotope Variation at the Base of the Food Web
8.2.3 Additional Sources of Variation of 13C Abundance
8.3 Human Food Systems of the Americas
8.4 Strategies of Management for Domesticated and Wild Animals in the Americas
8.4.1 Turkeys
8.4.2 Llamas
8.4.3 Rabbits
8.5 Evidence of Animals for Ritual Use in the Americas
8.5.1 Captive Carnivores at Teotihuacan
8.5.2 Macaws of Northern Mexico
8.6 Summary and Future Research
References
Chapter 9: Reassessing the Abandonment of Pig Husbandry in Post-Viking Iceland: An Isotopic Approach
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Stable Isotope Theory
9.3 A Short History of Pigs in Iceland
9.4 Historical Background of Eyri
9.5 Methods
9.6 Results and Discussion
9.7 Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Ratting out the Past: Investigating Anthropogenic Landscapes in Polynesia Through Stable Isotope Analysis of the Pacific Rat (Rattus exulans)
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Early Impacts of Humans and Rats on Polynesian Islands
10.3 A Case Study from the Onemea Site, Mangareva
10.4 Rat Bone Collagen δ13C and δ15N Analysis
10.5 Rat Dietary Change in Anthropogenic Landscapes
References
Part IV: Mobility of Humans
Chapter 11: Migration and Paleomobility in the Face of Environmental Change and Political Collapse: Case Studies from San Pedro de Atacama, Northern Chile
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Methodological Background: Identifying Paleomobility Through Biogeochemistry
11.3 Introduction to the Study Area: The San Pedro de Atacama Oases During the Middle Horizon and Late Intermediate Period
11.4 Case Study: Environmental and Political Change in the South Central Andes
11.4.1 Materials and Methods
11.4.2 Results
11.4.3 Discussion
11.4.4 Paleomobility After Environmental and Political Changes
11.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 12: Isotopic Investigation of Tiwanaku Mobility During the Middle Horizon: Preliminary Data from the Site of Piñami in the Cochabamba Valley of Bolivia
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Tiwanaku
12.1.2 The Cochabamba Valley
12.1.3 Piñami
12.2 Geological Setting and Regional Strontium Isotope Ratios
12.2.1 The Eastern Cordillera
12.2.2 The Altiplano
12.2.3 Biologically Derived Strontium Isotope Ratios
12.3 Analytical Methodology
12.3.1 Sample Selection
12.3.2 Laboratory Procedures for Elemental Isolation
12.3.3 Trace Element Concentration Analysis for Detection of Diagenesis
12.4 Results
12.4.1 Archaeological Rodent Data
12.4.2 Archaeological Human Data
12.4.3 Element Concentration Analysis for Detection of Diagenesis
12.4.4 Burial Contexts of Local Individuals
12.4.5 Burial Contexts of Non-local Individuals
12.5 Interpretations and Discussion
12.6 Conclusion
References
Part V: Future Directions
Chapter 13: Epilogue: Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology – Current Perspectives and Future Directions
References

Citation preview

Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology

Melanie M. Beasley Andrew D. Somerville  Editors

Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotope Analysis Applications in Archaeological Research

Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology Series Editor Jelmer Eerkens, University of California, Davis, CA, USA Editorial Board Members Canan Çakırlar, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Fumie Iizuka, University of California, Merced, CA, USA Krish Seetah, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Nuria Sugranes, Instituto de Evolución, Ecología Histórica y Ambiente, San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina Shannon Tushingham, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA Chris Wilson, Flinders University, Bedford Park, Australia

Archaeology stands alone among the sciences in its attempt to enlighten us about the entire record of humankind. To cover such a broad range of time and space, archaeologists must ensure that their findings are integrated into broader spheres of scientific knowledge. The IDCA series aims to highlight the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of contemporary archaeological research. Topics the series has covered include: • Paleoecology •  Archaeological Landscapes •  Statistical Approaches •  Laboratory Methods •  Human Biological and Cultural Evolution •  Human Nutrition •  Emergence of Agriculture and Pastoralism For a copy of the proposal form, please contact Christi Lue (christi.lue@springer. com). Initial proposals can be sent to the Series Editor, Jelmer Eerkens (jweerkens@ ucdavis.edu). Proposals should include: •  A short synopsis of the work or the introduction chapter •  The proposed Table of Contents •  The CV of the lead author(s) •  If available: one sample chapter We aim to make a first decision within 1 month of submission. In case of a positive first decision the work will be provisionally contracted: the final decision about publication will depend upon the result of the anonymous peer review of the complete manuscript. We aim to have the complete work peer-reviewed within 3 months of submission. This book series is indexed in SCOPUS. For more information, please contact the Series Editor at (jweerkens@ ucdavis.edu).

Melanie M. Beasley  •  Andrew D. Somerville Editors

Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotope Analysis Applications in Archaeological Research

Editors Melanie M. Beasley Department of Anthropology Purdue University West Lafayette, IN, USA

Andrew D. Somerville Department of World Languages and Cultures Iowa State University Ames, IA, USA

ISSN 1568-2722     ISSN 2730-6984 (electronic) Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ISBN 978-3-031-32266-2    ISBN 978-3-031-32268-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32268-6 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Chapter 6 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Image created on April 7, 2023 by Andrew Somerville and Melanie Beasley using the MidJourney AI Program to generate three images of imagined prehistoric human landscapes in a watercolor style This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This edited volume began as a collaborative effort during graduate school at the University of California-San Diego and originated as a session organized for the 78th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the Spring of 2013. Inspired by the location of the conference and by the music often playing in the lab, we titled the session “Isotope Ecology and the Ring of Fire: Bioarchaeology in the Pacific”. Joining us for the conference were a suite of experts in isotopic analyses who were working in various regions around the Pacific Rim. After the session, Jelmer Eerkens, who is series editor for the Springer series Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, suggested we expand the session into a book. And so, we fell into the burning ring of fire of the process of an edited volume. Many changes have occurred in the years between that organized session and the publication of this edited volume. We both completed our dissertations, completed postdoctoral fellowships, moved across the country, and experienced a global pandemic. The composition of contributing authors and the theme of the volume also changed, essentially becoming broader in its geographical and conceptual scope. What began with a focus on the Pacific Rim has since become a general book on the application of isotopic analyses in archaeological studies of human behavior with an intended audience of both students and practicing archaeologists. This edited volume is the result of the hard work and insights of the contributing authors. We are sincerely grateful for their patience and for the time they spent on each chapter. We made a concerted effort to invite authors from a variety of continents and at various stages in their careers. The volume includes chapters that situate isotopic studies within the historical context of the field, chapters that review the current state of knowledge on various topics, and individual case studies that highlight the ways in which different isotopes can be applied to various research questions. We appreciate that the authors who contributed work on human remains have followed best practices and ethics according to the communities and countries that they work with. Taken together, we believe that this collection of chapters provides

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Preface

a comprehensive introduction and guide to the application of isotopic analyses in archaeology. We hope it can be of use in training new generation of scholars as they develop new questions and methods, while remembering the history and development of isotope analyses as a tool to continue exploring past human behaviors. West Lafayette, IN, USA Ames, IA, USA

Melanie M. Beasley Andrew D. Somerville

About the Book

This edited volume compiles a series of chapters written by experts of isotopic analysis in order to highlight the utility of various isotope systems in the reconstruction of past human behaviors. Rather than grouping contributions by specific isotopes or analytical techniques, as many isotope review articles are arranged, the volume organizes chapters by broadly defined themes of archaeological research. These include: paleo diet and life histories, human-animal interactions, and migration and mobility. In this sense, the book is arranged with the intent of being as much question based as method based. Chapters under these themes provide background information on the principles of the techniques and on the theoretical underpinnings of the research; yet they are written with the non-specialist in mind and attempt to convey these ideas clearly and succinctly. In addition to the case studies and reviews, three chapters provide greater context to the field of isotopic archaeology, discussing its history, basic principles, and future potential. The volume aims to serve as a reference source for students and practicing archaeologists seeking to apply isotopic studies to their own research projects or to act as a reader for courses in archaeological science.

Keywords • • • • • • •

Stable and radiogenic isotope research Diet and life history interpretations through isotope analysis Evidence of human mobility from isotope ratios Multi-isotopic methods Studying human behavior through isotopic analysis Understanding human-animal relations through isotope systems Utility of faunal bones in reconstructing paleoenvironments

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Contents

Part I History and Introduction 1

Stable Isotope Analyses and Human Behavior: A Science Driven by Ideas and Tools ����������������������������������������������������������������������    3 Margaret J. Schoeninger

2

Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotopic Analyses: Tools, Scales, and Questions��������������������������������������������������������������������    9 Andrew D. Somerville and Melanie M. Beasley

Part II Paleodiet and Life History 3

Stable Isotope Evidence for Breastfeeding and Weaning Variables in Past Populations: Infant and Child Feeding in Ancient Siberian Foragers������������������������������������������������������������������   35 Andrea L. Waters-Rist

4

Human Paleodiet on Tutuila Island, American Samoa: Isotopic Evidence of Dietary Continuity Through the Medieval Warm Period-Little Ice Age Transition ��������������������������������   75 Eric J. Bartelink, Phillip R. Johnson, Olaf Nehlich, Benjamin T. Fuller, and Michael P. Richards

5

 Multi-isotopic Evidence for Prehispanic Maya Use of Multiple Subsistence Catchments at Caledonia, Cayo District, Belize��������������   99 Asta J. Rand

6

The Potential of Dental Calculus as a Novel Source of Biological Isotopic Data����������������������������������������������������������������������  125 Domingo C. Salazar-García, Christina Warinner, Jelmer W. Eerkens, and Amanda G. Henry

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Part III Human-Animal Interactions 7

Isotopes, Domestication, and Past Animal Husbandry Practices: A Review of the Formative Studies��������������������������������������  155 Rebecca L. Kinaston

8

Human-Animal Interactions in the Pre-­colonial Americas: Insights from Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis��������������������������������������  181 Andrew D. Somerville

9

Reassessing the Abandonment of Pig Husbandry in Post-Viking Iceland: An Isotopic Approach��������������������������������������  207 Eric Guiry, Céline Dupont-Hébert, and Vaughan Grimes

10 Ratting  out the Past: Investigating Anthropogenic Landscapes in Polynesia Through Stable Isotope Analysis of the Pacific Rat (Rattus exulans)����������������������������������������������������������  225 Jillian A. Swift Part IV Mobility of Humans 11 Migration  and Paleomobility in the Face of Environmental Change and Political Collapse: Case Studies from San Pedro de Atacama, Northern Chile���������������������������������������  249 Kelly J. Knudson and Christina M. Torres 12 Isotopic  Investigation of Tiwanaku Mobility During the Middle Horizon: Preliminary Data from the Site of Piñami in the Cochabamba Valley of Bolivia������������������������������������  267 Cristin A. Lucas, Corina M. Kellner, Frank C. Ramos, Karen Anderson, and Zulema Terceros Part V Future Directions 13 Epilogue:  Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology – Current Perspectives and Future Directions��������������������������������������������������������  295 Paul Szpak

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Melanie  M.  Beasley  received her MA in Anthropology from California State University-Chico with a project using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes to test models of resource depression and expanding diet breadth of Ohlone populations in Central California. She went on to receive her PhD in Anthropology with an emphasis in Anthropogeny from the University of California-San Diego and was then a Haslam Postdoctoral Fellow at the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. In both her PhD and postdoctoral research, she continued to be interested in how isotopes can be used as a tool to investigate past human behavior, shape our evolutionary trajectory, and be used to address the grand challenges facing humanity today. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue University and is Director of the BioAnth Isotope Ecology Research Laboratory (BIER Lab). Andrew  D.  Somerville  received his MA and PhD in Anthropology at the University of California-­San Diego. He spent a year in Mexico City as a UC MEXUS Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His research focuses on the archaeology and ecology of the ancient Americas. He is the Co-director of excavations for the Proyecto Hacienda Metepec at the ancient Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan and is leading new research on the origins of agriculture in the Tehuacan Valley of Puebla, Mexico. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University where he directs the Paleoecology Laboratory and is a faculty member of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology interdisciplinary PhD program.

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Editors and Contributors

Contributors Karen  Anderson  Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Eric  J.  Bartelink  Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico, CA, USA Melanie  M.  Beasley  Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA Céline  Dupont-Hébert  Laboratoires d’archéologie, Département des sciences historiques, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada Jelmer W. Eerkens  Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA Benjamin  T.  Fuller  Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Vaughan  Grimes  Department of Archaeology, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada Eric Guiry  School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester, ENG, UK Amanda  G.  Henry  Department of Archaeology, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands Phillip  R.  Johnson (deceased)  Kentucky Heritage Council, State Historic Preservation Office, Frankfort, KY, USA Corina  M.  Kellner  Department of Anthropology, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA Rebecca L. Kinaston  BioArch South, Dunedin, New Zealand Waitati, New Zealand Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia Kelly  J.  Knudson  Center for Bioarchaeological Research, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Cristin  A.  Lucas  Centre for Archaeological Field Training, Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ, USA Olaf Nehlich  Esarom GmbH, Oberrohrbach, Austria Frank  C.  Ramos  Department of Geological Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

Editors and Contributors

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Asta J. Rand  Department of Archaeology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada Michael  P.  Richards  Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada Domingo C. Salazar-García  Departament de Prehistòria, Arqueologia i Història Antiga, Universitat de València, València, Spain Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa Margaret J. Schoeninger  Department of Anthropology, University of California-­ San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA Andrew D. Somerville  Department of World Languages and Cultures, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA Jillian A. Swift  Pacific Legacy, Inc., Kailua, HI, USA Paul  Szpak  Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada Zulema Terceros  Antropología y Arqueología, Universidad Mayor de San Andres, La Paz, Bolivia Christina M. Torres  Department of Anthropology & Heritage Studies, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA Christina Warinner  Department of Archaeogenetics, Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA Institute for Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland Andrea  L.  Waters-Rist  Department of Anthropology, Western University, London, ON, Canada

Part I

History and Introduction

Chapter 1

Stable Isotope Analyses and Human Behavior: A Science Driven by Ideas and Tools Margaret J. Schoeninger

Abstract  I am particularly pleased to write this short piece for two reasons. First, the editors were both my graduate students at UCSD, and I feel privileged as their former advisor to be invited to contribute to this volume. Second the history of stable isotope analyses within anthropology began, arguably, in Chicago, the city of my birth. Much of the original research was done at the University of Chicago, where my father, James A Gavan, was a graduate student following his army service in WWII. The next phase of the work took place after WWII first in Chicago and subsequently in California with the placement of many University of Chicago physicists, chemists, and geochemists to the California Institute for Technology (Cal. Tech.), to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA, where I did my postdoctoral work), and at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) from which I recently retired after 20 years in the Anthropology Department. My passion for the approach and its applications was meant to be. Keywords  Stable isotope analysis · Isotope methods · Mass spectrometry Before I begin, I apologize to all those individuals not mentioned here, who do and have done incredible work using stable isotope analyses on problems of interest to anthropologists. At this point in time, there are far too many people for me to include. My goal here is to present a general outline of how a geochemical technique came to play such an important role within anthropology. In the beginning, the method and its applications were limited to physicists who discovered that many elements are comprised of more than one isotope (meaning ‘same place’ on the periodic table) and who used separated uranium isotopes to develop the first nuclear weapon. Following the war, chemists and geochemists used them for non-military purposes. Some of those geochemists had broad general interests and willingly trained many individuals familiar to those reading this book. My own history M. J. Schoeninger (*) Department of Anthropology, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. M. Beasley, A. D. Somerville (eds.), Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotope Analysis, Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32268-6_1

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M. J. Schoeninger

followed this trajectory in 1980 when Michael DeNiro at UCLA hired me as a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences to work on an NSF-funded project. This short preface attempts to cover those early anthropologists who became intrigued by the method because of its promise for our field. Let me begin by framing a thought that has troubled me for some time having spent much of my career with an isotope ratio mass spectrometer while serving as a faculty member in Medical and Social Science departments. The conundrum was beautifully presented in 2012 by Freeman Dyson (2012), retired professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He posed the question: is science mostly driven by ideas or by tools? In it, he compared the perspectives of a theoretical physicist turned historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, with that of an experimental physicist who also turned to the history of science, Peter Galison. For Kuhn, advancements in science occurred due to paradigm shifts within a field of interest, where a paradigm refers to a “system of ideas that dominate the science of a particular place and time” (2012: 1426). For example, Einstein and his mathematical models resulted in a paradigm shift. For Galison, the development of new tools was equally if not more important. One of Galison’s examples was the change from an analog device that displayed a continuous range of values (e.g., an electrocardiogram trace) to digital devices (i.e., counters and computers), which allowed direct and statistical evaluation of similarities and differences. Dyson concluded that both ideas and tools are critical to the advancement of science and “we are lucky to live in a time when both are going strong” (2012: 1427). Dyson’s paper resolved for me what seemed to be a contradiction of the long-­ held view within many social sciences that theory ranks above any tools or methods. Yet, the U.S. is an English- not German- speaking country because of a man who recognized the importance of a tool during WWII. Both the Germans and the Allies were racing to develop the atom bomb, which they saw as key to ending the war. Germany pursued fusion of hydrogen isotopes (excitingly portrayed in the movie “The Heavy Water War” released on TV in 2015) and failed to produce an atomic bomb. In contrast, the US military established the Manhattan Project, which included an Italian-born, naturalized-American (i.e., an immigrant), Enrico Fermi. Fermi, a theoretical and an experimental physicist was recognized with a 1938 Nobel Prize for his discovery of the artificial radioactivity produced by neutrons and for identifying nuclear reactions resulting from slow neutrons (Nobel Lectures, 1938). He had left Italy for the US in 1938 because new Italian Racial Laws threatened his Jewish wife, Laura. Fermi who was called the “architect of [the] atomic bomb” in a New York Times article on November 29, 1954, needed to test the feasibility of the bomb before it could be deployed. To achieve this test, two isotopes of Uranium (U-238, which accounts for >99% of Uranium and U-235 at