The influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals was investigated by analyzing animals grown in the laboratory on diets of constant nitrogen isotopic composition. 
The isotopic composition of the nitrogen in an animal reflects the nitrogen isotopic composition of its diet. The δ^(15)N values of the whole bodies of animals are usually more positive than those of their diets. Different individuals of a species raised on the same diet can have significantly different δ^(15)N values. The variability of the relationship between the δ^(15)N values of animals and their diets is greater for different species raised on the same diet than for the same species raised on different diets. Different tissues of mice are also enriched in ^(15)N relative to the diet, with the difference between the δ^(15)N values of a tissue and the diet depending on both the kind of tissue and the diet involved. The δ^(15)N values of collagen and chitin, biochemical components that are often preserved in fossil animal remains, are also related to the δ^(15)N value of the diet. 
The dependence of the δ^(15)N values of whole animals and their tissues and biochemical components on the δ^(15)N value of diet indicates that the isotopic composition of animal nitrogen can be used to obtain information about an animal's diet if its potential food sources had different δ^(15)N values. The nitrogen isotopic method of dietary analysis probably can be used to estimate the relative use of legumes vs non-legumes or of aquatic vs terrestrial organisms as food sources for extant and fossil animals. However, the method probably will not be applicable in those modern ecosystems in which the use of chemical fertilizers has influenced the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in food sources. 
The isotopic method of dietary analysis was used to reconstruct changes in the diet of the human population that occupied the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico over a 7000 yr span. Variations in the δ^(15)C and δ^(15)N values of bone collagen suggest that C_4 and/or CAM plants (presumably mostly corn) and legumes (presumably mostly beans) were introduced into the diet much earlier than suggested by conventional archaeological analysis.

Influence of Diet On the Distribtion of Nitrogen Isotopes in Animals

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

In this innovative book, a well-known feminist and sociologist-who is also the founding editor of Gender & Society-challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber argues that gender is wholly a product of socialization, subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation, and that it is a social institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize positions of power.

Paradoxes of gender

Ancient DNA research is revealing a human history far more complex than that inferred from parsimonious models based on modern DNA. Here, we review some of the key events in the peopling of the world in the light of the findings of work on ancient DNA.

/pdf/ancient-dna-and-the-rewriting-of-human-history-be-sparing-3gvlgy8a8v.pdf

Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam's razor.

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ∼8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ∼24,000-year-old Siberian. By ∼6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ∼4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ∼75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ∼3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

This introduction to the symposium and to this issue of Current Anthropology attempts to provide some sense of the topic, the meeting itself, the participants, and some of the initial results. Our symposium brought together a diverse international group of archaeological scientists to consider a topic of common interest and substantial anthropological import—the origins of agriculture. The group included individuals working in most of the places where farming began. This issue is organized by chronology and geography. Our goal was to consider the most recent data and ideas from these different regions in order to examine larger questions of congruity and disparity among the groups of first farmers. There is much new information from a number of important areas, particularly Asia. Following a review of the history of investigation of agricultural origins, this introduction summarizes the results of the conference. There are at least 10 different places around the world where agriculture was independently d...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/659964

The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas

Reconstruction of migration patterns in the Bell Beaker period by stable strontium isotope analysis

Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory

Recent genetic, isotopic and linguistic research has dramatically changed our understanding of how the Corded Ware Culture in Europe was formed. Here the authors explain it in terms of local adaptations and interactions between migrant Yamnaya people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe and indigenous North European Neolithic cultures. The original herding economy of the Yamnaya migrants gradually gave way to new practices of crop cultivation, which led to the adoption of new words for those crops. The result of this hybridisation process was the formation of a new material culture, the Corded Ware Culture, and of a new dialect, Proto-Germanic. Despite a degree of hostility between expanding Corded Ware groups and indigenous Neolithic groups, stable isotope data suggest that exogamy provided a mechanism facilitating their integration. This article should be read in conjunction with that by Heyd (2017, in this issue).

/pdf/re-theorising-mobility-and-the-formation-of-culture-and-2c60h2o9to.pdf

Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe

Foreword J. Watson. Part I: Introduction. 1. Archaeology at the Millennium: Of Paradigms and Practice G.M. Feinman, T. Douglas Price. 2. An Aspect of Archaeology's Recent Past and Its Relevance in the New Millennium J.A. Sabloff, W. Ashmore. Part II: Introduction to Part II. 3. Paleoanthropology at the Millennium K. Schick, N. Toth. 4. Fully Modern Humans R.G. Klein. 5. Holocene Hunter-Gatherers R.L. Bettinger. Part III: Introduction to Part III. 6. The Transition to Food Production B.D. Smith. 7. Richman, Poorman, Beggarman, Chief: The Dynamics of Social Inequality B. Hayden. 8. Craft Production Systems, C.L. Costin. 9. Warfare and the Evolution of Culture J. Haas. Part IV: Introduction to Part IV. 10. Understanding Ancient State Societies in the Old World G.J. Stein. 11. State Formation in the New World L. Manzanilla. 12. Classical Archaeology and Anthropological Archaeology in North America: A Meeting of Minds at the Millennium? J.L. Davis. 13. Empires C.M. Sinopoli. Part V: Conclusion. 14. The Archaeology of the Future T.D. Price, G.M. Feinman.

T. Douglas Price

Papers

The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas

Reconstruction of migration patterns in the Bell Beaker period by stable strontium isotope analysis

Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory

Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe

Archaeology at the Millennium: A Sourcebook