Is it correct that skeleton analysis can tell about if someone was a migrant?

Question

I've just read the following passage and can't understand how high concentration of a certain element in the bones can indicate the respective human was a migrant. Doen't it merely mean that those people ORIGINATED FROM region growing certain kind of foods containing that element?

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"The discovery of distinctively shaped ceramic pots at various prehistoric sites scattered over a wide area has led archaeologists to ask how the pots were spread. ... Now, analysis of the bones of prehistoric human skeletons can settle the debate: high levels of a certain metallic element contained in various foods are strongly associated with people who migrated to a new place after childhood. Many of the bones found near the pots at a few sites showed high levels of the metallic element. Therefore, it must be that the pots were spread by migration, not trade."

Answer 1

Yes, minerals in teeth & bones vary depending upon where an animal lived. Basically one could consider them to be somewhat simular to the rings in a tree as different deposits of minerals in each layer of a tooth or bone will indicate an area where an animal grew up & moved through when migrating.  

All places will have a differing degree of Iron, or other elements/minerals that will show up in the teeth & bones.

Answer 2

You can tell a lot from the bones of a person. They recently found a body from 600 a.d. buried in a Scottish castle cemetery. Only one problem he was over 6ft tall unheard of for the native population of that day in that area of the British Isles. So the took teeth and I do not recall the name of the test. But based on the test on death his bone structure told of his muscular content. They determined that the diet to make him that tall and muscular did not exist in that area where the bones were found. Plus he was buried with the peasant's outside the castle wall and only nobility buried inside the walls of the castle ate that well. The found that he was a Viking mainly based on the wear on his teeth as to specific plants not native to where he died but native to Scandinavian countries.

Answer 3

Yes. You are right to think that trace element analysis of skeletal material can indicate certain things about diet. So can stable isotope ratios, another type of chemical analysis. Both techniques can also indicate whether an individual migrated to the area in which his or her remains were recovered.

Trace elemental ratios, such as strontium/calcium, exhibit regional variation. A range of values should be determined drawing on the faunal record of the area.  Individuals from outside that area should exhibit values either below or above that range. The value will reflect that specific individual's personal history, not that of his/her parentage or heritage in general (if this is what you mean by 'originated from'?).  

Strontium stable isotopes can also be used for this purpose.  There are four isotopes of strontium and they are found in rock, groundwater, soil, plants, and animals. The strontium found in groundwater and soil is incorporated into plants and animals. Concentration and ratios of strontium isotopes vary with local geology. Strontium substitutes for calcium in the hydroxyapatite of teeth and bone. In humans, adult tooth enamel formed in childhood, so the strontium ratios in their tooth enamel will reflect the strontium isotope composition of the environment in which they grew up. As with the trace elements, if it's different from that of the environment in which they're found, it indicates they must have migrated there at some point.  

That passage is a bit too overgeneralized, I think. It sounds like it's saying that all migrants, from all places to all places, mysteriously have high trace elements of something, just for being migrants. It's not that simple. It has to do with local variations in stable isotopes and trace elements in plants, animals, etc., and finding humans in a place where they don't reflect the expected values of things for that place.

It's some nifty stuff!

--Edit--

Just wanted to add that there are A LOT of considerations that have to be taken into accout with this kind of work. For example, dentin, enamal and bone apatite from the same individual will display different values (for reasons understood, but nonetheless it complicates things). Also, if you're using migratory animals to determine the local range of values, these animals may skew your range so it doesn't accurately reflect the locality. Often, due to costs of conducting the analysis as well as not having a lot of skeletal material to work with, sample sizes are often too small to draw conclusions that can stand on their own as "proof" of anything. And so on. Overall though, this kind of analysis can be very useful evidence supporting (or rejecting) a hypothesis about migration, diet, etc. Unexpected results have sometimes lead to much needed re-thinking of well-accepted hypotheses.

Answer 4

It probably suggests that this type of metal was not found in the archaeological region being studied and therefore is presumed that these people travelled from elsewhere to live where their remains were found. However couldn't it also mean that trades/travellers supplied goods to that reason that in some way contributed to the level of metals in their bones.

Answer 5

Most of the 92 "naturally occuring" elements in the periodic table of elements are metallic. Although leaching of metals from ceramic cooking vessels to bone deposition occurs for some elements, (such as lead) others occur in the soil, are taken up by plants, and absorbed through eating them. A careful analysis of the soil types in an area, compared with the ceramic pots, and bone composition can enable certain inferences to be made, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

Answer 6

Rainwater soaks into the ground, and absorbs minerals in the rock. Animals and lants absorb the water, and humans  drink the water when it comes to the surface. Human bones absorb minerals from the groundwater they drink and animals and plants they eat, and these get absorbed into the bones as you grow.

You can tell by the minerals present in the bones where a persons bones formed (where they grew up). It's how they traced the birthplace of that headless African boy 'Adam' they found floating down the Thames..

Answer 7

What does that prove, we were hunter and gathers before we settled down.  In trading we did not always trade goods but also people, marriages and slaves. We were brought forth in one area and spread accross the world, each time we settled a group looking for land would come from behind us and go on.

If a marriage or a slave trade would that not show up different than the locals. As for pots they would be brought with or the style would the wife or slave.

Answer 8

the testing of isoltopes on the teeth can be used to determine where a person grew up, though not their ancestry. Just round the corner from my home, a mere 3 miles from the prehistoric temple of Stonehenge, archaeologists found the richest early bronze age burial so far discovered in the UK--the Amesbury Archer,buried with gold hair tresses,archery equipment and lots of distinctive pots known as beakers.

   Now in the early 80's a shift in archaeological thinking, gave rise to a theory that the people known as the 'beaker people' ,thought at one time to be invading warriors from area around the Rhine up to the Alps,who brought copper & new burial customs to britain, didn't actually exist. Trade had brought a 'cultural package' they claimed; there were no 'beaker invaders' at all.

  well, the archers teeth were tested--and guess what? Here indeed was a 'beaker invader', who came from the Alps!