| Abstract: | Palaeodiet of humans can be determined using stable carbon isotope ratios of bone collagen. Differences in δ13C-values between individuals in a population may be due to real differences in diet, or alternatively, they could be due to age- or sex-dependent differences in the physiologically controlled fractionation of carbon isotopes between food and collagen. The dependence of this fractionation on age and sex was tested in a study of 50 individuals of differing ages from a prehistoric population of bison hunters. The total variation in δ13C for bone collagen was found to be ± 0.3‰, indicating that variations larger than this, observed in other populations, are due to real dietary differences between individuals. |
