Premium
Using carbon isotopes to track dietary change in modern, historical, and ancient primates
Author(s) -
Sponheimer Matt,
Codron Daryl,
Passey Benjamin H.,
de Ruiter Darryl J.,
Cerling Thure E.,
LeeThorp Julia A.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.21111
Subject(s) - isotope analysis , feces , stable isotope ratio , enamel paint , biology , zoology , archaeology , geography , paleontology , ecology , art , visual arts , physics , quantum mechanics
Stable isotope analysis can be used to document dietary changes within the lifetimes of individuals and may prove useful for investigating fallback food consumption in modern, historical, and ancient primates. Feces, hair, and enamel are all suitable materials for such analysis, and each has its own benefits and limitations. Feces provide highly resolved temporal dietary data, but are generally limited to providing dietary information about modern individuals and require labor‐intensive sample collection and analysis. Hair provides less well‐resolved data, but has the advantage that one or a few hair strands can provide evidence of dietary change over months or years. Hair is also available in museum collections, making it possible to investigate the diets of historical specimens. Enamel provides the poorest temporal resolution of these materials, but is often preserved for millions of years, allowing examination of dietary change in deep time. We briefly discuss the use of carbon isotope data as it pertains to recent thinking about fallback food consumption in ancient hominins and suggest that we may need to rethink the functional significance of the australopith masticatory package. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:661–670, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.