Retrospective isotope analysis of ancient remains to distinguish between tamed and wild animals

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5255553
AutoresJun Matsubayashi (0000-0003-1548-9462, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), T Tsutaya (0000-0001-5104-5223, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Takao Sato (0000-0002-5424-0873, Keio University)
Ano2024
Volume16
Fascículo8
Data de publicação2024-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoArchaeological and Anthropological Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1866-9557 • E-ISSN: 1866-9565
EditoraSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s12520-024-02042-0
OpenAlexW4401225018
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas53

The origin and process of the domestication of wild animals have long fascinated scientists. However, there are no reliable methods to distinguish between tamed and wild animals. Here, we present a new method to identify tamed and wild juvenile brown bears (Ursus arctos) using retrospective isotope analysis of the femur. We used femurs from the nine bear cubs and the tibia from one domesticated dog excavated from the Nijibetsu Shuwan Kumaokuriba site, Hokkaido Islands, Japan (late 19th century-1939 AD). These bears were potentially tamed by indigenous Ainu people, and the domesticated dog was used as a reference of a tamed animal. We subdivided these bones into 10 sections along the growing axis, extracted collagen and measured the stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N). The bone sections of the domesticated dog had constant δ15N values that were as high as that of salmon, suggesting that tamed animals exclusively consumed a marine diet fed to them by the Ainu. Notably, two of nine brown bear cubs showed a temporal elevation of δ15N to the similar isotope ratios of the dog tibia, which is unlikely to occur in the wild condition, strongly suggesting that they were tamed and fed by the Ainu people

Archaeology · Biology · Domestication · Geography · Isotope analysis · Juvenile · Ursus · Zoology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Demography · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Ecology