Publisher Summary
This chapter presents a synthesis of recent advances made in bioarchaeology, an emerging discipline that emphasizes the human biological component of the archaeological record. The chapter presents an examination of the impact of economy and behavior on skeletal and dental tissues. Skeletal and dental tissues are remarkably sensitive to the environment. Such factors as diet, disease, population size and mobility, physical exercise, and work leave indelible marks on these tissues. The chapter describes the means by which skeletal remains have been and can be used for understanding processes that underlie human behavior. It also explores the impact of different lifeways on the skeleton with reference to nonpathological and pathological changes in articular joints, bone form and function, and the nature of skeletal and dental changes in light of the use of the jaws and teeth in both masticatory and non-masticatory roles.

6 – Bioarchaeological Interpretations of Subsistence Economy and Behavior from Human Skeletal Remains

This paper consists of a stable carbon isotopic assessment of the diets of the Holocene human inhabitants of the southwestern Cape, South Africa. Samples of the foods these people ate were collected from each of the four major physiographic zones in the area and their 13C/12C rations measured. A total of more than 200 such analyses enabled the estimation of the average 13C values of prehistoric human diets in each zone. This information is used to interpret 13C measurements on a series of archaeological human skeletons. The results are consistent with a model of prehistoric subsistence behaviour in which a number of people living at the coast made intensive use of marine food resources throughout the Holocene, consuming such a large proportion of these foods that they must have spent much if not all of their time at the coast. Most inland skeletons reflect an almost entirely terrestrial diet. These results contradict hypotheses about seasonal population movements between the coast and the interior generat...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2742972.pdf

Isotope Assessment and the Seasonal- Mobility Hypothesis in the Southwestern Cape of South Africa1

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human and animal diet in Africa

We assess craniometric variation in 153 individually dated human crania from South Africa with the aim of investigating genetic continuity/discontinuity during the Holocene. Evidence from the archaeological record is used to pinpoint likely episodes of genetic discontinuity. Craniometric data are then used to assess the likelihood of genetic change having occurred. Two periods of possible genetic discontinuity are identified: i) c. 4,000 BP, when an increase in overall population size, shifts in site organization and diet, and reduced mobility, were accompanied by reductions in stature; ii) c. 2,000 BP, when the herding of domesticates and the use of pottery vessels were introduced into the region. Results indicate that there was a decrease in cranial size and concomitant size-related changes in craniofacial shape between c.4,000 BP and 3,000 BP. This was followed almost immediately by a recovery in craniofacial size and a return to pre-4,000 BP craniofacial shape at c. 3,000 BP. This recovery continued gradually, extending into the herder period without any major shifts in morphology at 2,000 BP. It is suggested that the fluctuations in craniofacial size/shape were related to changes in environmental factors. Results obtained are consistent with long term continuity in South African Later Stone Age populations during the Holocene.

Craniofacial variation and population continuity during the South African Holocene.

Stable isotope analysis of skeletal tissues is widely used in archeology and paleoanthropology to reconstruct diet. In material that is poorly preserved or very old, the tissue of choice is frequently tooth enamel, since this is less susceptible to diagenesis. The relationships between carbon isotope ratios in tooth enamel (δ(13) C(enamel) ), bone collagen (δ(13) C(collagen) ), and bone apatite (δ(13) C(bone apatite) ) are, however, not well understood. To elucidate these, we have measured all three indicators in archeological humans from the western and southern Cape coastal regions of South Africa. The correlation between δ(13) C(enamel) and δ(13) C(collagen) is good (R(2) = 0.71 if two outliers are excluded, n = 79). The correlation between δ(13) C(enamel) and δ(13) C(bone apatite) is weaker (R(2) = 0.37, n = 33) possibly due to bone diagenesis. No systematic offset between δ(13) C(bone apatite) and δ(13) C(enamel) was observed in this sample of archeological humans. Intertooth comparisons of δ(13) C(enamel) in three individuals showed little variation, despite the different ages of crown formation. Carbon isotope ratios in both enamel and bone collagen are good proxies for δ(13) C(diet) .

Hausman Alice Jane

Papers

Holocene human evolution in Southern Africa