Elise Dufour

• PhD
• Maîtresse de conférences at Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle

Secure environmental contexts are crucial for hominin interpretation and comparison. The discovery of a Denisovan individual and associated fauna at Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra) Cave, Laos, dating back to 164–131 ka, allows for environmental comparisons between this (sub)tropical site and the Palearctic Denisovan sites of Denisova Cave (Russia) and Baishi...

To get insights into the elusive process of the domestication of South American Camelids (SAC), we focused on the Central Andean zone and the long sequence from Telarmachay (Puna of Junín, Peru), for which an early process of domestication, dating 5500-5000 BP, has been proposed. We explored the camelid diversity of Telarmachay with a morphometric...

The Andean highlands challenged but did not prevent human exploration and occupation starting in the Late Pleistocene. The timing and nature of these events is an ongoing area of research and debate for which reliable chronologies are required. Our goal is to revise the chronological framework of the Telarmachay rockshelter, a key site from the And...

Long considered on the margins, far from the major cultural traditions, the Sechura Desert is situated at the crossroads between the cultures of southern Ecuador and those of the northern Peruvian coast and preserves a large number of varied archaeological sites. Despite this evidence, little is known about the societies that inhabited this region...

South American Camelids (SAC) were of great economic and cultural importance for pre-Hispanic societies in the Andes and still are important for rural Andean communities. However, understanding their specific role and function over time is hampered by the lack of reliable taxonomic identification of their archaeological remains. Although this probl...

La Puna Seca en el extremo norte de Chile constituye un espacio de significativa relevancia para abordar la relación humano-animal, al situarse entre dos de los principales focos de domesticación de camélidos en la región andina. En el presente trabajo, ofrecemos una primera síntesis de los análisis arqueozoológicos de catorce sitios de cazadores r...

Isotopic analysis of Micropogonias furnieri otoliths were used to get insight into palaeoceanographic conditions in the Guanabara Bay and Saquarema Lagoon, Rio de Janeiro state (RJ), located on the southeastern coast of Brazil, under upwelling influence of the Cabo Frio system. Archaeological otoliths come from two Holocene shellmounds (or sambaqui...

Le site de Huaca Amarilla, situé dans le désert de Sechura au nord du Pérou, a livré un ensemble funéraire singulier utilisé entre le IXe et le XVe siècle. Il se compose de 112 individus immatures (70 provenant de contextes funéraires fouillés et 42 de vestiges dispersés) dont l’âge au décès a été estimé entre 24 semaines d’aménorrhées et 7 ans, et...

A Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP II) has been used to make high spatial resolution in situ micro-analyses of oxygen isotopes in fish otoliths, and teeth from fossil herbivores and a Neanderthal. Large intra-tooth variations in the oxygen isotopic composition (up to 9&) were observed in the enamel of herbivores from the Neanderthal...

Tam Pà Ling, a cave site in northeastern Laos, has yielded the earliest skeletal evidence of Homo sapiens in mainland Southeast Asia. The reliance of Pleistocene humans in rainforest settings on plant or animal resources is still largely unstudied, mainly due to poor collagen preservation in fossils from tropical environments precluding stable nitr...

The capability of Pleistocene hominins to successfully adapt to different types of tropical forested environments has long been debated. In order to investigate environmental changes in Southeast Asia during a critical period for the turnover of hominin species, we analysed palaeoenvironmental proxies from five late Middle to Late Pleistocene fauna...

Rome saw its number of foreign individuals increase considerably as the empire expanded. These foreigners arrived as either free persons or slaves from the newly conquered provinces and near-frontier zones and came to influence the whole life of the city. Yet relatively little is known about their life histories. In this study, we bring direct evid...

This article reconstructs the final diet of sacrificed domestic camelids from Huanchaquito-Las Llamas to understand whether feeding was part of the ritual practice. The site is situated on the northern coast of Peru and is dated to the fifteenth century AD (Late Intermediate period; LIP). It was used by the Chimús to kill and bury a large number of...

The proteomic analysis of hairs, yarns or textiles has emerged as a powerful method to determine species of origin, mainly used in archaeozoological research and fraud control. Differentiation between the South American camelid (SAC) species (the wild guanaco and vicuña and their respective domesticates the llama and alpaca) is particularly challen...

Cet ouvrage est le fruit d’une longue et étroite collaboration entre une équipe française comprenant des spécialistes de nombreuses disciplines archéologiques et paléo-environnementales et un institut de recherche djiboutien dédié à la recherche archéologique et historique. Leur terrain d’étude se situe dans le bassin du Gobaad, des abords du lac A...

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of collagen from bone and dentin have frequently been used for dietary reconstruction, but this method is limited by protein preservation. Isotopes of the trace element zinc (Zn) in bioapatite constitute a promising proxy to infer dietary information from extant and extinct vertebrates. The ⁶⁶Zn/⁶⁴Zn ratio...

Freshwater bivalve shell oxygen isotope values (δ¹⁸OS) may act as a recorder of river δ¹⁸O variations that can then be interpreted in terms of hydrology (e.g. precipitation–evaporation balance, precipitation and river discharge patterns). We investigated the potential of this proxy measured across the hinge of South American unionid shells: Anodont...

Here we report the results of excavation and interdisciplinary study of the largest child and camelid sacrifice known from the New World. Stratigraphy, associated artifacts, and radiocarbon dating indicate that it was a single mass killing of more than 140 children and over 200 camelids directed by the Chimú state, c. AD 1450. Preliminary DNA analy...

Pastoralism and camelid management have been essential to all aspects of pre-Hispanic Andean societies. Here, we present zooarchaeological and isotopic data on domestic camelid remains from Huaca Cao Viejo (El Brujo archaeological complex) on the northern coast of Peru, and dated to the Lambayeque/Sicán period—to characterise their biological age,...

The discovery of the sacrificial remains of 140 children and 206 camelids sacrificed at the site of Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, on the northern coast of Peru, has provided new data on mass sacrifice practices during the Chimú period. The exceptional state of preservation of the camelids, including the presence of coats and hides, opens new research pe...

An optimized synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction method is described for the direct and efficient measurement of crystallite phase and orientation at micrometre resolution across textured polycrystalline samples of millimetre size (high scale dynamics) within a reasonable time frame. The method is demonstrated by application to biomineral fish otol...

The site of Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, situated in the Moche Valley, Peru, dated to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1100-1470), represents a single event mass killing of children and domestic camelids of the Chimu society. Reconstruction of the life histories of 82 camelid individuals based on stable isotope analysis of bone collagen indicates that...

This paper describes IsoArcH, a new web-based database of isotopic data for bioarchaeological samples from the Graeco-Roman world and its margins. IsoArcH was designed as a cooperative platform for the dissemination of isotopic data and associated archaeological information. IsoArcH follows the open access model and is freely accessible online (htt...

The Nam Lot site in Laos and the hominin-bearing Duoi U'Oi site in Vietnam are dated to MIS 5 (86–72 ka) and MIS 4 (70–60 ka), respectively. Located in the same latitudinal belt ~20°N in the north of the Indochinese area, the faunal assemblages recovered from breccia deposits in a karstic context have the potential to provide information on the pal...

The Boh Dambang karstic site in southern Cambodia, Kampot province, is a mammal bone-rich deposit in a hyena site. Very few hyena sites have been recovered in the Pleistocene of Southeast Asia, thus little information is known about the foraging abilities of hyenas during that period and their decline in the region, while the other hypercarnivores...

The late Paleolithic site of Makhadma 4, located along the Nile River in Upper Egypt, yielded an important ichthyofauna characterized by a very high proportion of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). We used isotopic analysis (δ¹⁸O) of well-preserved otoliths ("ear stones") of tilapia to reconstruct the former hydrological conditions, as well as the fi...

Bone geochemistry of pre-Dogon (11th–16th cent. AD) and Dogon (17th–20th cent. AD) populations buried in two caves of the Bandiagara Cliff (Mali) was examined for the purpose of exploring their diet and mobility. While the Dogon were the subject of extensive ethnographic studies, the lifestyle of the pre-Dogon, so-called “Tellem” is not known. We t...

Fish otoliths ("ear stones") are major environmental indicators used in ecology and fisheries sciences. Otoliths consist of a biomineral material containing an organically-templated mineral calcium carbonate, normally aragonite, in which strontium is incorporated at trace to minor levels depending on water chemistry and individual physiology. Sr co...

Stable isotope analysis (SIA) of fish otoliths shows great potential for exploring the ecology of fish, but this method has not been applied to the study of lacustrine fish communities. Both sequential and whole-otolith SIAs were performed on six fish species of Lake Annecy and their results compared to muscle SIA. The first purpose of these invest...

Fish otoliths are biogeochemical archives of environmental conditions and are a valuable tool for examining life traits. These sclerochronological life history records, accessed through geochemical analyses, are widely used in fisheries sciences, and are seeing growing use as palaeoenvironmental archives or for reconstruction of past human activiti...

Llama (Lama glama) and alpaca (Vicugna pacos) are the only large domesticated animals indigenous to the Americas. Pastoralism occupies a fundamental economic, social and religious role in Andean life. Today, camelid livestock are confined to the ecozone of the puna (above 3,500 masl), while their presence on the Pacific coast during pre-Hispanic ti...

Funerary practices and bioarchaeological (sex and age) data suggest that a mortality crisis linked to an epidemic episode occurred during the fifth phase of the St. Benedict cemetery in Prague (Czech Republic). To identify this mass mortality episode, we reconstructed individual life histories (dietary and mobility factors), assessed the population...

Comunes en los sitios arqueológicos costeños peruanos en la época prehispánica, los camélidos se encuentran hoy en día ausentes de este medio ambiente. Por lo tanto, se sugirió durante mucho tiempo que estos animales llegaban a la costa a través de intercambios con la sierra. Este trabajo representa un primer intento en la utilización del oxígeno e...

Sequential analysis of otolith oxygen isotope (δ(18) O(oto) ) values was performed by classical mechanical microdrilling and dual inlet mass spectrometry to infer the timing of growth checks in pike (Esox lucius) scales from Lake Annecy (France). It indicated that the first check on scales occurs before the first winter of life of the fish. Eleven...

The catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus located in the south-east of Rome approximately contains 25 000 graves dated from the 3rd to the 5th century AD. Seven newly discovered rooms having an unusual organization in the heart of the catacomb were investigated in 2003. Excavations of these rooms revealed a mass grave, where 3000 corpses were la...

Renewed in-depth multi-disciplinary investigation of a large coastal mound settlement in Peru has extended the occupation back more than 7000 years to a first human exploitation ∼13720 BP. Research by the authors has chronicled the prehistoric sequence from the activities of the first maritime foragers to the construction of the black mound and the...

The hunter-fisher-gatherers from Paíjan (desert of Cupinisque, North Peru) are the first known human groups inhabiting the desert coasts of Peru. Excavations performed by one of us (CC) have revealed that these groups present distinctive characteristics: their lithic tools and the inland consumption of lizards and fish. The sea level was dramatical...

The hunter-fisher-gatherers from Paíjan (desert of Cupinisque, North Peru) are the first known human groups inhabiting the desert coasts of Peru. Excavations performed by one of us (CC) have revealed that these groups present distinctive characteristics: their lithic tools and the inland consumption of lizards and fish. The sea level was dramatical...

Otoliths of age 0 year alewife Alosa pseudoharengus collected in different Lake Michigan habitats were microsampled, and carbon and oxygen isotope ratios (δ18Ootolith and δ13Cotolith) of resulting microsamples were quantified. To assess the temporal resolution of the method, age and otolith growth rates were also estimated by counting otolith daily...

Topographical relationships between the mineral and organic components are important to understand the process involved in biomineralisation. We examined nanostructural features of cod (Gadus morhua) otoliths using atomic force microscope (AFM). Acicular aragonitic fibres that form primary increments observed in scanning electron or light microscop...

We generated 10 high-resolution profiles of stable carbon and oxygen isotope values (δ13Coto and δ18Ooto) of sagittal otoliths of whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) from Lake Annecy (France) to determine the factors that control intra-individual δ13Coto variation. Dominant patterns of intra-otolith variation compared well with seasonal and age-specifi...

In this paper, we investigate the potential use of oxygen and strontium isotope ratios (d 18 O p and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) measured in archaeological fish enamel as provenance indicators. d 18 O p and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr were measured in a suite of archaeological carp remains recovered from the Anatolian townsite of Sagalassos dated to the Early Byzantine period...

We evaluate the use of oxygen isotope values of biogenic apatite for tracking freshwater to marine migration in modern and fossil Pacific sockeye salmon. Oxygen isotope analyses of otoliths, vertebrae, and teeth of three anadromous modern sockeye salmon from Alaska establish a basis for the interpretation of fossil vertebrae and tooth apatite from...

We apply a robotic micromilling technique to the sampling of young-of-the-year (YOY) and 1+ otoliths from alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) captured in different habitat types of Lake Michigan during 2001-2003. delta(18)O values of otolith cores of YOY alewives from Muskegon Lake (a sheltered, drowned river mouth lake connected to Lake Michigan), Mus...

Intra-otolith stable isotope profiles were generated for nine adult whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) from Lake Annecy. δ18O values of otolith and ambient water were used to reconstruct the thermal history of the fish over the growing season, and to determine the vertical positioning of whitefish in Lake Armecy, which is stratified during the summer....

The soluble matrix of the sagittal otolith of the cod Gadus morhua was analyzed using UV and IR spectroscopy, liquid chromatography and electrophoresis. This matrix is a complex mixture of proteins and glycoproteins, with a large range of molecular weights. High weights (>1000 kDa) are shown for the first time in water-soluble matrix of otolith. Ho...

Contribution of stable isotopes to fish ecological studies. Over the last 20 years stable isotopes have become a useful tool for ecological studies. Stable isotopes are widely used for studying ecological features of fishes, including trophic position within and between communities and populations, mechanisms of pollutant bioaccumulation, identific...

Measurements of organochlorine [polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichloro-diphenyl-dichloroethylene (DDE)] and Hg concentrations and nitrogen and carbon stable isotopic compositions (delta15N and delta13C) were performed on 63 Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from Lake Geneva. Fish exhibited a high interindividual variablity in pollutant concen...

Microstructure, mineralogy and elemental and isotopic compositions of recent and fossil otoliths have been investigated. Fossil otoliths come from marine Pliocene localities of southeastern France. The study of the different parameters show that diagenetic changes are weak. Microstructural features specific to otoliths, such as needle-like crystals...

Microstructure, mineralogy and elemental and isotopic compositions of recent and fossil otoliths have been investigated. Fossil otoliths come from marine Pliocene localities of southeastern France. The study of the different parameters show that diagenetic changes are weak. Microstructural features specific to otoliths, such as needle-like crystals...

Isotopic measurements were performed on bone collagen of teleostean fish from three European lakes (Lake Geneva, Lake Constance and Lake Aiguebelette) and from Lake Baikal (Russia) in order to investigate the isotopic variability of freshwater fish and its consequences for the reconstruction of prehistoric human diet in Eurasia. δ13C and δ15N value...