HeavenlyPossum on Nostr: Archeologists can do this cool thing: measure the ratios of stable isotopes in ...

Archeologists can do this cool thing: measure the ratios of stable isotopes in ancient bones and teeth. As we go about our lives, our teeth and bones constantly absorb small amounts of elements from the water we drink and the food we eat. By studying ratios of stable isotopes (ie, the ones not prone to radioactive decay, so they leave a permanent signature), we can get a sense of the sorts of foods ancient peoples ate and even a sense of how their diets changed over their lives, or whether they moved from the place of their birth to a new environment.

So, archeologists did this with the bones found in the pit. They figured out that the pit was full of domesticated cattle bones, which probably came from three different locations, each about a day’s walk away from Coneybury.

The Coneybury Anomaly is, then, evidence of a local gathering of probably three different groups of these early farmers, meeting up to share meat and—based on chemical analysis of some pottery fragments—dairy products with each other.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers

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