Reconstructing life histories Flashcards
(23 cards)
Osteobiography
Assembling all information available from the skeleton to create a life narrative for a single individual
7 components of osteobiographies
1) Context
2) Demography
3) Genetic information
4) Diet
5) Mobility
6) Health
7) Deathways
Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi CASE STUDY
- Naurally mummified remains of a young adult male (18-20)
- Saint Elias Mountains, British Columbia
- Elevation of 1600m
- Exceptional preservation
- Clothing and artefacts recovered
Cultural identity of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- Provenance crucial to establishing identity to ensure appropriate funerary ceremonies were carried out
- Find location is on a first nations trading trail situated between Tlingit coastal settlement and 80km from Champagne-Aishihik settlement
- Was he local? Was he from the interior or the coast?
Why was an autopsy conducted on the remains of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- Principally to establish cause of death and take samples for DNA analysis
- Sterile conditions maintained throughout
Method: aDNA analysis of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- 2 DNA samples isolated: upper left humerus and overlying muscle tissue
- DNA authenicity: control blanks, results duplicated by 2 labs, lab workers mtDNA sequenced and eliminated
Results: aDNA analysis of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- 405 bp of mtDNA HVR I:
- Haplogroup A
- Common in North American Natives/Northwest coast pacific groups
- Also frequent in central and south american indigenous groups
Preservation of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- Transversely bisected by glacier
- All tissues of torso and upper thighs preserved
- Skull, teeth, hair recovered in 2003-04
Osteological observations of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- 18-20 years old, based on partial epiphyseal fusion of thoracis vertebrae, fuesd tibia, femoral heads, and proximal humerus
- Crowns of teeth very worn
- Stature estimate 169cm
What did GC-MS confirm about Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- Significant adipocere on back
- Breakdown of lipids by anaerobic bacteria to fatty acids in wet desposition environment
Health of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- No signs of violent injury, only a lower leg fracture noted
- Internal parasites caused by freshwater and marine consumption
- 2 bacterial infections
- Mycobacterium TB, identical to European strains, no skeletal indicators
What finds were alongside Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi
- 23 wooden artefacts: birch, spruce, red cedar
- Painted hooded stick
- Iron bladed knife with gopher skin sheath
- Raw materials and artefact types could indicate affiliation and provenance
- One personal adornment
- Beaver pelt and moose skin bad
Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi: -Blanket shaped robe:
- Source of raw material identified through DNA fingerprinting
- Arctic gound squirrle fur
- 95 pelts
- Stitched with moose sinew
- Style typical of interior tribes
Repairs to Kwaday Dan Ts’Inchi - Blanket shaped robe
- Blanket shaped robe repaired on several occasions
- Sinews from rocky mountain goat, humpback wale
- Patch from blue wale
- Evidence for movement between coastal and interior
Plant remains and pollen from Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Coastally distributed species:
- Mountain hemlock
- Mountain sweet cicely
- Goosefoot
- Beach asparagus
Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch’s Conical Hat
- Woven with spruce root
- Upside down basket
- Internal headband and chinstrap
- Style typical of coastal groups
- Sitka spruce is coastally distributed
Diet of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Fish flesh and scales recovered from clothing and near body
- Chum salmon and sockeye
- Both anadromous species, available at inland and coast
- Dried fish used when journeying
Stable isotope analysis on bone of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Bone collagen to indicate lifetime diet 13C and 15N
- diet based on fish and possibly marine
- Spent most of his life at the coast
Stable isotope analysis on hair of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- 2 strands of hair analysed for 13C and 15N to reconstruct short-term dietary intake
- Sequential samples 1.5cm long
- Reflect 1-2 months of growth/diet
- One hair strand showed changing 13C and 15N values - change in diet reflecting movemement between coast and interior
- Problem: no roots on hairs sampled
Digestive tract sampling - Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Proxy for activities and movements in days before death
- High proportion of marine resources suggests he travelled from the coast
- Beach asparagus remains had intact flowers, this stamps them as late july to late august
- Stomach 1-2 hours all the way to rectum 2-3 days
- All can be tested
Lipid Analysis of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Lipids in human tissues reflect dietary lipids
- Bone marrow, sometimes bone apatite
- In comparison to bone collagen or apatite, bone lipid turnover is very rapid: 1 year
- Skin lipids turnover within a few weeks
BONE:
- High proportion of fatty acids similar to those found in plasma of Greenland Inuit
- Fatty acids which are not found in freshwater fish
- High proportion of fatty acids consistent with marine diet
SKIN:
- Marine diet markers are reduced, terrestrial increased - suggests a move to the interior several weeks or months before death
Summary of movements of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
Collagen SIA: Lifetime at coast
Bone lipid: much of last year at coast
Hair keratin SIA: Movement between coast and interior - direction and timing uncertain
Skin lipids: Last few weeks spent inland
Stomach and intensine: Coastla resources consumed 3 days before death
Constructed life history of Kwaday Dan Ts’Inch
- Lived between 500 and 150 y.a
- Spent much of his life on the coast but moved inland several weeks or months before he died
- His final journey began at the coast
- Carried coastal foods with him and consumed them on his journey
- Covered 70km in 2 days
