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Friday 3 August 2018

Could the cremated "foreigners" have come from the Mendips?



Thanks to Alex for drawing attention to the enclosed article:

http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol23/UBSS_Proc_23_3_171-265.pdf 

Proc. Univ. Bristol Spelaeol. Soc., 2005, 23 (3), 171-265
‘... PURSUING A RABBIT IN BURRINGTON COMBE’: NEW RESEARCH ON THE EARLY MESOLITHIC BURIAL CAVE OF AVELINE’S HOLE
by
R. J. SCHULTING

Go to page 224
STRONTIUM ISOTOPES AND MOBILITY
(T.D. Price and R. Schulting)

Rick Schulting is one of the authors of the new paper, and as Alex has pointed out, analyses of the teeth from five individuals found in the Aveline's Hole Cave have strontium isotope ratios which are well above those expected from individuals living on the chalk downs, and well within the range assigned in the new paper to "foreigners who might have come from West Wales".   The graph shows the "Mendip range" towards the top and the "chalk downs range" towards the bottom.

The isotope ratios for the "Stonehenge foreigners"discussed in the new NATURE article had values ranging from 0.7091 to 0.7118.

As the authors explain, the strontium isotope signal in teeth is acquired during childhood, and the signal in cremated bone is acquired in the decade prior to death.  Nevertheless, if the cave dwellers' teeth have a Mendips signal in them, it is perfectly feasible (and indeed highly likely) that the adults cremated at Stonehenge ( with values between 0.7091and 0.7118) also came from the Mendips or somewhere nearby.  I can see nothing in the NATURE paper that might contradict this hypothesis........

So why all this fuss about West Wales when the answer quite probably lies much closer to home?

If the Mendips hypothesis needs to be rejected on sound scientific grounds, no doubt Rick Schulting and his colleagues will let us know. 

3 comments:

TonyH said...

As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. He attributed this to Benjamin Disraeli, he of the "greasy pole".

TonyH said...

Dr Rick Schulting, Associate Professor in Scientific & Prehistoric Archaeology, Oxford.

GO TO:-

www.arch.ox.ac.uk/RS3.html

You will find there his email address, telephone number, research and current interests AND a full ist of his publications including Conference Proceedings.

Publications include"You are what you eat, when and where you eat it..."

Alex Gee said...

Brian: Elsewhere in the paper its also suggested that the Strontium levels in the teeth of the younger individuals, means they must also have spent some time on the chalk!