Comparison of isotopic variability in proteinaceous tissues of a domesticated herbivore: a baseline for zooarchaeological investigation. (20th October 2013) - von Holstein, I. C. C.
Abstract : RATIONALE: A variety of metabolic, dietary and climatic influences on isotopic variation have been established in mammalian hair. The relevance of these factors to collagen isotopic composition is unknown, but would be of great interest to zooarchaeological analyses of faunal skeletal tissue. METHODS: The relationships between carbon (δ 13 C), nitrogen (δ 15 N), non‐exchangeable hydrogen (δ 2 H) and oxygen (δ 18 O) values of defatted, demineralised and gelatinised bone collagen and defatted wool keratin from two sheep flocks (n = 20, 5) in the UK were investigated, including testing for the effects of nutritional plane, sex, pregnancy and season of sample collection. The sulfur composition (δ 34 S values) was also investigated for tissues from the smaller flock. RESULTS: Bulk collagen was enriched in 13 C over bulk keratin by 2.0 − 2.7‰ and in 2 H by 29 − 40‰ but depleted in 18 O relative to keratin by 1.8‰. Differences in δ 15 N values were within experimental error. The collagen samples were generally more enriched in 34 S than keratin, but this was very variable. Pregnancy, sex and season, but not nutritional plane, significantly affected isotope values but did not change overall keratin‐collagen relationships. CONCLUSIONS: This dataset provides a baseline measure of variability and comparability for isotopic investigations into origin and husbandry conditions in archaeological sheep tissues, both collagen and keratin. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.