Questions Of Scale In Isotopic Approaches To Past Human Lives Seminar

Abstract

Isotopic analyses are now ubiquitous in archaeological investigations of past diet.  But in the adoption of the technique into far wider and routing usage, I argue that there are several key issues that are overlooked by many practitioners.  In this talk, I will outline what I see to be some critical questions in how we use isotopic analyses, concerning scale and resolution.  In particular, I argue that better consideration of such issues is the way to gain far from our data than just a "cookie cutter" application of the technique.