A02_05

Elite diet and its effects on the ¹⁴C dates of Estonian Bronze Age human remains

Tõrv M¹, Oras E¹, Meadows J², Lang V¹, Kriiska A¹

¹University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, ²Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie, Schleswig, Germany

Human bone is a valuable material for dating ancient events, but these ¹⁴C dates can be misleading if the ingested carbon derives from organisms outside of the atmospheric isotopic equilibrium. Dietary intake of freshwater and marine species may result in markedly older dates than the actual event. Thus, to interpret the ¹⁴C dates obtained from human bone, we firstly need to identify the food sources and their proportions in the diet of the analysed individuals. We will present an exemplary case study about the Bronze Age stone cist grave populations – the first archaeologically visible elite buried into the monumental graves – in Estonia. Recently ca. 100 new radiocarbon dates have been obtained from these human skeletal remains to establish a new Bronze Age chronology in Estonia. To critically evaluate these dates, we revisited the published ¹⁴C dates and present new stable isotope results – carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) – from these graves, focussing on the relationship of the ¹⁴C dates to the individual dietary preferences. 

We reconstructed the elite food habits of the Bronze Age populations in Estonia. We employed quantitative palaeodiet reconstruction and dietary reservoir effect estimation to indicate the complexities behind dating ancient human remains. Statistical modelling of calibrated dates further allowed reconstructing the chronology of specific burial practices. With this study we aim to exemplify how combined analytical approaches allow more refined interpretation of ¹⁴C dates and reconstruct both site-specific and wider chronology of Bronze Age elite burial customs in Estonia.