ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the use of oxygen and strontium as isotopic tracers, that is, their use in investigating human mobility. Bioarchaeological research has increasingly focused on the concept of identity as a framework for exploring life in the past, at both the individual and the population levels. The use of strontium isotopes to investigate migration in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East is a relatively recent addition to the traditional methods of analysis involving burial styles, grave goods, epigraphy, and artefacts. In cases of sufficient preservation, the integration of ancient DNA techniques with stable isotope techniques can refine the way bioarchaeologists study human biogeographic diversity via biological ancestry and human phylogenetics. Isotopic investigations conducted by K. Killgrove, M. Scheeres, and colleagues, Scheeres, and R. Nicholls and colleagues are particularly salient since they reveal regional differences in human migration in the Italian peninsula over time.