Constraining a bioavailable strontium isotope baseline for the Lake Garda region, Northern Italy: A multi-proxy approach
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The evidence of prehistoric long-distance exchange networks in northern Italy is overwhelming, attested by several finds of non-local raw materials in Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlements of Lake Garda and eastern Po plain, like amber beads and bronze artefacts. Metals are dispersed throughout Bronze Age Europe from mining communities within the Alpine regions, and possibly local artefacts, like the Peschiera-type daggers, are known from archaeological records throughout Europe. This positions the region as part of organized networks of trade and communication connecting prehistoric Europe from north to south. This, however, does not in itself indicate a similar long-distance mobility of prehistoric individuals. To investigate individual, human provenance and mobility, the strontium (Sr) isotope methodology compares strontium isotope analysis of human remains to bioavailable strontium isotope baselines characterizing the regions of interest. We present here environmentally based, multi-proxy (water, soil leachates and plants) Sr baselines from the Lake Garda region. Our results show two separate baselines, roughly corresponding to the geographical distribution of rock types and erosional products thereof. One baseline is valid for the Lake Garda region, where Mesozoic carbonates are a dominant surface-near strontium source, and for the central Po plain north of River Po. We constrain this to 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7088 ± 0.0014 (2σ; n = 44) when including 9 compatible samples reported previously. The second Sr-baseline is valid for Alpine areas dominated by magmatic (basalts excluded) and metamorphic bedrock around the Fersina valley. We constrain this to 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7146 ± 0.0058 (2σ; n = 22) when including 11 compatible samples reported in previous studies. The baselines are compatible with previously reported results of other Sr proxies such as snails, archaeological fauna, and agricultural soils and products from the region.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103339 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |
| Volume | 41 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| ISSN | 2352-409X |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
This research was made possible through the support of The Carlsberg Foundation ?Semper Ardens? research grant CF18-0005 (?Tales of Bronze Age People? to Karin Margarita Frei); The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbank Jubileumsfond) grant M16-0455:1 (?Towards a New European Prehistory? to Kristian Kristiansen; and the Carlsberg Foundation research grant CF-15 0878 (?Tales of Bronze Age Women? to Karin Margarita Frei). We wish to thank Samantha Scott Reiter from the National Museum of Denmark for a dedicated and enthusiastic participation in the field work. We also wish to thank Cristina Jensen and Toby Leeper for highly qualified lab assistance at the isotope laboratory of the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at University of Copenhagen. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their helpful and constructive comments. Site maps were created using ArcGIS? software by Esri. ArcGIS? and ArcMap? are the intellectual property of Esri and are used herein under license. Copyright ? Esri. All rights reserved. For more information about Esri? software, please visit www.esri.com.
Funding Information:
This research was made possible through the support of The Carlsberg Foundation “Semper Ardens” research grant CF18-0005 (“Tales of Bronze Age People” to Karin Margarita Frei); The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbank Jubileumsfond) grant M16-0455:1 (“Towards a New European Prehistory” to Kristian Kristiansen; and the Carlsberg Foundation research grant CF-15 0878 (“Tales of Bronze Age Women” to Karin Margarita Frei). We wish to thank Samantha Scott Reiter from the National Museum of Denmark for a dedicated and enthusiastic participation in the field work. We also wish to thank Cristina Jensen and Toby Leeper for highly qualified lab assistance at the isotope laboratory of the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at University of Copenhagen. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their helpful and constructive comments. Site maps were created using ArcGIS® software by Esri. ArcGIS® and ArcMap™ are the intellectual property of Esri and are used herein under license. Copyright © Esri. All rights reserved. For more information about Esri® software, please visit www.esri.com.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
- Archaelogy, Bioavailable Sr/Sr baseline, Environmental multi-proxy approach, Lake Garda, Mobility and provenance studies, Northern Italy, Strontium isotopes
Research areas
ID: 306106463