Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe Afrique (LAMPEA) — UMR 7269 — Université d’Aix-Marseille, CNRS, INRAP



Accueil > Recherche > Projets de Recherche | AAP > AAP | PIA - AMU

A*MIDEX | Chaire d’Excellence

ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02

Holocene hunter–gatherers of Cis-Baikal (Siberia) : An individual life history and micro-sampling

Prinicipal investigator : Andrzej Weber, Professor at Aix Marseille University
2015–2017 Initiative d’excellence Aix-Marseille Université (A*MIDEX), France /
A*Midex Endowed Chair
€430,000 (Reference Project WEBERRHR/SOCA/AM15AVHRXX)

Project goals

  • This project aims to test the new technique of human tooth micro-sampling for biochemical characterization and to generate new data on the dietary history of hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region of Siberia in Middle Holocene (c. 8000–3000 BP). The method allows identification of short-term dietary changes at intervals of 9–12 months during the first 20 years of human life.
  • The approach has an excellent potential to generate a large body of entirely new high-resolution data on the early life history including short-term changes in diet, age at weaning, differential parental investment in raising girls vs. boys, frequency of starvation bouts, subsistence, migrations and mobility—all of which carry broader cultural, social, economic and also environmental significance including climatic. Importantly, this early life history data are complementary to the low-resolution data on the late life history provided by isotope tests on adult bone fragments, which average behaviour over the last 10–20 years of human life.
  • While the research potential of the tooth micro-sampling method is exceptionally strong, the technique is also time and labor intensive and this is why, so far, it has been employed on a limited scale. Using our AMIDEX project for comparison between the volume of work needed by the tooth micro-sampling and bone bulk sampling methods provides a useful perspective on the laboratory scope of what we consider to be an extended pilot study.

Workshops

- Workshop 1 : “Advances in micro-sampling techniques of human archaeological skeletal remains”, organized at LAMPEA on February 25–26, 2016
- Workshop 2 : “Solving mixing problems using the Bayesian model FRUITS : dietary and non-dietary applications”, held at LAMPEA on October 13–14, 2016. FRUITS (Food Reconstruction Using Isotopic Transferred Signals) - Dr. Ricardo Fernandes (University of Cambridge/University of Kiel)

Bibliography

 Weber A.W., Schulting R.J., Bronk Ramsey C., Bazaliiskii V.I. 2016. Biogeochemical data from the Shamanka II Early Neolithic cemetery on southwest Baikal : Chronological and dietary patterns. Quaternary International, Vol. 405, Part B : 233–254. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.01.031]
 Weber A.W., Schulting R.J., Bronk Ramsey C., Goriunova O.I., Bazaliiskii V.I., Berdnikova N.E. 2016. Chronology of middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Cis-Baikal region of Siberia : Corrections based on examination of the freshwater reservoir effect. Quaternary International, Vol. 419, Part C : 419 : 74–98. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.12.003]
 Lynch S.C., Locock A.J., Duke J.M., Weber A.W. 2016. Evaluating the applicability of portable-XRF for the characterization of Hokkaido obsidian sources : A comparison with INAA, ICP-MS and EPMA. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 309(1) : 257–265.[http://dx.DOI: 10.1007/s10967-016-4766-9]
 Scharlotta I., Bazaliiskii V.I., Lieverse A.R., Weber A.W. 2016.Social consequences of increased reliance on fishing in middle Holocene Cis-Baikal : relating fishing gear, axes, and social status at the Shamanka II cemetery, Lake Baikal, Siberia. Quaternary International, Vol. 419, Part C : 99–132. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.02.055]
 Weber A.W., Schulting R.J., Bronk Ramsey C., Bazaliiskii V.I. 2016. Biogeochemical data from the Shamanka II Early Neolithic cemetery on southwest Baikal : Chronological and dietary patterns. Quaternary International, Vol. 405, Part B : 233–254. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.01.031]
 Scharlotta I. 2016. Differentiating mobility and migration in middle Holocene Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science : Reports. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.05.045]
 Scharlotta I, Goude G, Herrscher E, Bazaliiskii V, and Weber A. 2018. Shifting weaning practices in Early Neolithic Cis-Baikal, Siberia : New insights from stable isotope analysis of molar micro-samples. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology DOI : 10.1002/oa.2708.
 Scharlotta I, Goude G, Herrscher E, Bazaliiskii VI, and Weber AW. 2018. “Mind the gap” — Assessing methods for aligning age determination and growth rate in multi-molar sequences of dietary isotopic data. American Journal of Human Biology 30(5):e23163. DOI:23110.21002/ajhb.23163.

Conferences

 Weber A.W., Schulting R., Goriunova O.I., Bazaliiskii V.I. Middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in Cis-Baikal, Siberia : a case for micro-sampling molar dentin. Paper presented at the workshop on “Advances in micro-sampling techniques of human archaeological skeletal remains”, A*MIDEX and Baikal–Hokkaido Archaeology Project Workshop, Aix-Marseille Universite, France, Feb. 25–26, 2016.
 Weber A.W. Archaeological and geochemical research on middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region, Siberia. LAMPEA, Aix Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France, May 23, 2016. Research seminar.
 Weber A.W. Middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region, Siberia : New work on high-resolution chronologies and dietary changes. Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, UK, November 23, 2016. Invited lecture.
 Weber A.W. Middle Holocene hunter–gatherer archaeology in the Baikal region, Siberia : Recent developments and future directions. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, March 29 – April 2, 2017
 Scharlotta I., Goude G., Herrscher E., Bazaliiskii V.I., Weber A.W. Investigating temporal shifts in diet and behavior at Shamanka II, Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, March 29 – April 2, 2017
 Bronk Ramsey C., Schulting R.J., Weber A.W. Resolving patterns in radiocarbon data. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, March 29 – April 2, 2017