Diet, Mobility and Identity in Ancient Communities

Identifying long-term dietary habits requires analysing the chemical signatures known as preserved within skeletal remains.

To protect the evidence, the researchers focus on the rather than on the softer parts of the tooth.

One crop that produces an unusually recognisable chemical signature in the samples is , which can be clearly distinguished from other cereals such as wheat and barley.

Dietary shifts do not always indicate a permanent relocation and may instead reflect between regions at different times of year.

In communities near the shore, the diet often includes , which are easier to identify in the chemical record.

Beyond diet, the same skeletal material can expose episodes of physical hardship through what researchers call that record illness or periods of reduced food supply.

Comparing burial sites across a region allows researchers to chart that show how communities moved over several generations.

The speaker refers to as the path that kept appearing in different datasets.

In the end, the evidence suggests a strong among people who saw the landscape as part of their identity.