John Krigbaum

University of Florida | UF · Department of Anthropology

The Moche archaeological culture flourished along Peru’s North Coast between the 4th and 10th centuries CE and was characterized by a complex social hierarchy dominated by political and religious elites. Previous archaeological evidence suggests kinship was a key factor in maintaining political authority within Moche society. To test this hypothesi...

Nitrogen (N)-fixing symbiosis is critical to terrestrial ecosystems, yet possession of this trait is known for few plant species. Broader presence of the symbiosis is often indirectly determined by phylogenetic relatedness to taxa investigated via manipulative experiments. This data gap may ultimately underestimate phylogenetic, spatial, and tempor...

Bioarchaeologists routinely use isotopic data to classify the geographic origin of skeletal individuals as “local” or “nonlocal” using statistical criteria or comparative baselines. Yet, these analyses and resulting interpretations rarely consider how people in the past may have conceived of their relationships to different places. Using a case stu...

Domestic horses and donkeys played a key role in the initial colonization of the Atlantic seaboard of the Americas, a process partially chronicled by historical records. While Spanish colonists brought horses to the Caribbean and southern latitudes earlier, the transport of domestic horses to the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1606 was am...

This study recreates aspects of the life and death of a young adult male who died during the siege of Roca Vecchia, a Bronze Age fortified coastal site in Italy. The partially charred and unburied individual, Roca US813A, was found among the debris in the southern room of the main gate to the city. This paper highlights information that can be retr...

(1) Background: Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis (Bcbva) was the causative agent of an anthrax-like fatal disease among wild chimpanzees in 2001 in Côte d’Ivoire. Before this, there had not been any description of an anthrax-like disease caused by typically avirulent Bacillus cereus. Genetic analysis found that B. cereus had acquired two anthrax-li...

This chapter demonstrates how integrating isotopic analyses and more traditional zooarchaeological methods can help to bridge the gap between theory and practice by exploring variation in the management and distribution of faunal resources recovered from disparate socio-economic spheres of consumption at the palatial settlement of Mycenae, Greece,...

Recent advances in isotopic analysis have enabled archaeologists to move beyond subsistence and diet toward the full chaîne opératoire of foodways that includes inference of past culinary practices. Together with faunal identification, isotopic analysis of organic residues derived from ancient pottery helps to create linkages between material cultu...

The analysis of lead isotopes ( ²⁰⁶ Pb/ ²⁰⁴ Pb, ²⁰⁷ Pb/ ²⁰⁴ Pb, and ²⁰⁸ Pb/ ²⁰⁴ Pb) in ancient enamel and bone is a relatively new technique for tracking lead exposure, as well as the movement of animals across the landscape. The methods and limitations for lead isotope testing on ancient faunal remains are still being explored. Lead isotopes in ar...

Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes are widely used in the archaeological sciences to decipher origin and mobility patterns of humans and animals. Similarly, lead (206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, and 208Pb/204Pb) isotopes can also provide origin and mobility information for archaeological remains. Furthermore, the Pb isotope system has the p...

In the US Southwest and Northwest Mexico, people and turkeys ( Meleagris gallopavo ) have had a reciprocal relationship for millennia; turkeys supplied feathers, meat, and other resources, whereas people provided food, shelter, and care. To investigate how turkeys fit within subsistence, economic production, sociopolitical organization, and religio...

Link to the whole book: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/103586 Bibliographic entry: Eusebio, Michelle S., Philip Piper, Fredeliza Campos, T. Elliott Arnold, Andrew Zimmerman, and John Krigbaum. 2022. Using Organic Compound-Specific Stable Isotope Ratios to Identify Animals in Prehistoric Foodways of Southeast Asia. In Isotope Research in Zooarchaeology:...

Through case studies of faunal remains from Roman Britain, prehistoric Southeast Asia, ancient African pastoral cultures, and beyond, this volume illustrates some of the ways stable isotope analysis of ancient animals can address key questions in human prehistory. Contributors use a diverse set of isotope chemistry techniques to investigate social...

Through case studies of faunal remains from Roman Britain, prehistoric Southeast Asia, ancient African pastoral cultures, and beyond, this volume illustrates some of the ways stable isotope analysis of ancient animals can address key questions in human prehistory. Contributors use a diverse set of isotopic techniques to investigate social and biolo...

Isotope research has become an integral part of archaeological faunal analyses, or zooarchaeology, in recent years. Archaeologists can now examine the past relationships among humans, animals, and their surrounding environments in better detail than ever before. This chapter reviews the history of isotope applications in zooarchaeology, including i...

The analysis of lead isotopes (206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, and 208Pb/204Pb) in ancient enamel and bone is a relatively new technique for tracking lead exposure, as well as the movement of animals across the landscape. The methods and limitations for lead isotope testing on ancient faunal remains are still being explored. Lead isotopes in archaeologic...

Societal Impact Statement Identifying where introduced animals fit in a food web relative to each other and to endemic species is key for biodiversity conservation planning. Using a multiproxy study of dog feces from eastern Madagascar, we infer that even dogs that spend time in derived grasslands typically eat forest‐derived foods. Regardless of t...

In South America, most examples of dental modification come from Ecuador; however, none have been directly radiocarbon dated and few have associated cultural materials or context. In fact, many modified teeth and crania are housed in museum collections, divorced from their cultural and temporal milieus, and because of this it is generally assumed t...

Researchers have depicted the Middle and Late Woodland inhabitants of coastal Virginia as forager-fishers, especially prior to the introduction of maize into the region (Gallivan 2016). This interpretation of dietary focus includes an assumed reliance upon locally and seasonally available fish and shellfish as regular staples of Native American die...

Increased mobility and human interactions in the Mediterranean region during the eighth through fifth centuries BCE resulted in heterogeneous communities held together by political and cultural affiliations, periodically engaged in military conflict. Ancient historians write of alliances that aided the Greek Sicilian colony Himera in victory agains...

Throughout much of the pre-Hispanic Andes, bioarchaeological and iconographic evidence shows that the decapitation, dismemberment, and display of human heads were important aspects of ritual practices. Researchers have debated about the social identities of these decapitated heads—were they revered local ancestors, non-local enemies captured in rai...

Humans use dietary resources in many ways, employing varied subsistence strategies in response to local environmental fluctuations and innovative technologies. Documenting these patterns of resource use is an important part of our understanding of past societies and human relationships with the landscape, animals, and each other. In this paper, we...

Anthrax is a worldwide zoonotic disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Primarily a disease of herbivores, human infections often result from direct contact with contaminated animal products (cutaneous and inhalational anthrax) or through consumption of infected meat (gastrointestinal anthrax). The genetic near neighbor, B...

Bahamian hutias (Geocapromys ingrahami) are the only endemic terrestrial mammal in The Bahamas and are currently classified as a vulnerable species. Drawing on zooarchaeological and new geochemical datasets, this study investigates human management of Bahamian hutias as cultural practice at indigenous Lucayan settlements in The Bahamas and the Turk...

In July 2011, renovations to Yale-New Haven Hospital inadvertently exposed the cemetery of Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut’s first Catholic cemetery. While this cemetery was active between 1833 and 1851, both the church and its cemetery disappeared from public records, making the discovery serendipitous. Four relatively well-preserved adult s...

Contemporary West Indian biodiversity has been shaped by two millennia of non-native species introductions. Understanding the dynamics of this process and its legacy across extended temporal and spatial scales requires accurate knowledge of introduction timing and the species involved. Richard Ligon’s 17th century account and celebrated map of earl...

Camelid management was a major part of the Wari Empire’s (ca. ad 600–1050) economy; however, it is uncertain whether camelid husbandry was centrally regulated or locally managed. To address this problem, we applied combined isotope ratio analyses (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, δ¹⁸O, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, and ²⁰ⁿPb/²⁰⁴Pb) to camelid remains from Castillo de Huarmey, a Wari admi...

The unraveling of the Wari Empire circa AD 1000 is marked by violent political upheaval and climate change. Such social, economic, and environmental disruptions are often accompanied by significant shifts in human diet and mobility in affected populations. We examine diachronic change through isotopic analysis of human remains from an early burial...

Lead isotope ratios (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb) are used with increasing frequency in archaeological science to track the movement of animals, including humans. Like other isotopes used for sourcing, including strontium and oxygen, lead isotope ratios from bone and tooth enamel apatite can be matched to known lead sources in local b...

Recent paleogenomic studies have shown that migrations of Western steppe herders (WSH) beginning in the Eneolithic (ca. 3300–2700 BCE) profoundly transformed the genes and cultures of Europe and central Asia. Compared with Europe, however, the eastern extent of this WSH expansion is not well defined. Here we present genomic and proteomic data from...

Significance The nature of animal management in Mesoamerica is not as well understood compared with other state-level societies around the world. In this study, isotope analysis of animal remains from Ceibal, Guatemala, provides the earliest direct evidence of live animal trade and possible captive animal rearing in the Maya region. Carbon, nitroge...

One important question with respect to past health and disease is the identification of patterns of caloric inadequacies. Given the substantial literature (animal and human) linking caloric inadequacy to reduced bone mass, microarchitectural deterioration, and changes in stable isotope values, we utilized a rodent model to examine whether integrati...

This research uses stable isotope analyses to identify disparities in management strategies amongst faunal resources consumed in disparate socio-economic sectors of the Late Bronze Age palatial settlement of Mycenae, Greece. δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, and δ¹⁸O data from four species (99 individuals) known to have been purposefully managed during this time period...

One of truly remarkable developments in the prehistory of North America was the construction of more than a dozen Great Houses—imposing multi-storied structures that were qualitatively different from the usual small, irregular, single-story homes—in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico from the early 800 CE to the 1100s. Beginning no later than...

Mainland Southeast Asia underwent dramatic changes after the mid-first millennium B.C.E., as its populations embraced new metallurgical and agricultural technologies. Southeast Asians transformed their physical and social environments further through their participation in international maritime trade networks. Early state formation characterized m...

The evolution of Homo sapiens and their early human diaspora into Southeast Asia were clearly significant events in human prehistory. This chapter presents a brief review of some of the fossil/sub-fossil evidence that has been presented to date in the literature. Much of the evidence that does exist was discovered prior to modern excavation techniq...

We examined the potential use of lead (Pb) isotopes to source archaeological materials from the Maya region of Mesoamerica. The main objectives were to determine if: 1) geo-logic terrains throughout the Maya area exhibit distinct lead isotope ratios (206 Pb/ 204 Pb, 207 Pb/ 204 Pb, and 208 Pb/ 204 Pb), and 2) a combination of lead and strontium rat...

K-means cluster analysis reports for the Northern Lowlands, Southern Lowlands, and Motagua Valley. (A) K-Means cluster analysis for the Northern Lowlands, 207Pb/204Pb and 206Pb/204Pb. Black and red colors designate different clusters, identified by centroid numbers. (B) K-Means within-cluster sum of squares scree plot for the Northern Lowlands, 207...

Rationale: Bone lipid compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) and bone collagen and apatite stable isotope ratio analysis are important sources of ecological and paleodietary information. Pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) is quicker and utilizes less solvent than traditional methods of lipid extraction such as soxhlet and ultrasonication. This...

Abstract: The Chelechol ra Orrak site is one of the largest and oldest cemetery sites in the Pacific Islands. Dating back to at least 2800 BP, the site contains the remains of descendant Palauan populations that may represent individuals who lived within 20-25 generations of the archipelago’s first colonists dating back to between ca. 3300-3000 BP....

Fossils from late Miocene localities in north Florida offer new information about the paleoecological relationships between sympatric alligatorine and tomistomine crocodylians. Large, robust tomistomines (traditionally referred to Gavialosuchus americanus) outnumber Alligator fossils at localities representing coastal/estuarine depositional environ...

Warfare impacts how people and populations can move about the landscape. Ethnographers have posited that internal warfare, conflict that takes place within a single society, is strongly associated with female abduction. In contrast, external warfare, combat between different societies, is often accompanied by the in-migration of men for purposes of...

This chapter provides a detailed overview of the contemporary cremation process that begins with a human body and ends with a small volume of inorganic matter that can fit in a small box or an urn. The various methods that cremation analysts have traditionally used to analyse cremated remains are discussed first. Next, the potential of using chemic...

Just as modern nation-states struggle to manage the cultural and economic impacts of migration, ancient civilizations dealt with similar external pressures and set policies to regulate people's movements. In one of the earliest urban societies, the Indus Civilization, mechanisms linking city populations to hinterland groups remain enigmatic in the...

INTRODUCTION Investigations into the introduction of non-native animals in the Caribbean during the Ceramic Age (ca. 2500-500 BP) address the economic and socio-symbolic significance of these taxa, their place in multi-scalar networks of interisland/continental interaction, and the impact of exotic species on island ecosystems (e.g., Giovas et al....

Rationale: Stable isotope analysis is a valuable technique for dietary estimation in ecological and archaeological research, yet many variables can potentially affect tissue stable isotope signatures. Controlled feeding studies across a range of species have consistently demonstrated impacts of caloric restriction on tissue stable isotope ratios,...

Human activities in the Bahamas and other oceanic islands have damaged terrestrial ecosystems irreparably through the extinction of indigenous species. Tortoise and crocodile bones from Abaco Island in the Bahamas sampled for 14C-dating revealed a small overlap between the last occurrence of these large reptiles and early human settlement in the Ba...

The paper describes the initial results from renewed investigations at Niah Cave in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, famous for the discovery in 1958 of the c. 40,000-year old ‘Deep Skull’. The archaeological sequences from the West Mouth and the other entrances of the cave complex investigated by Tom and Barbara Harrisson and other researchers hav...

This study tests the hypothesis that vertical habitat preferences of different monkey species inhabiting closed canopy rainforest are reflected in oxygen isotopes. We sampled bone from seven sympatric cercopithecid species in the Taï forest, Côte d'Ivoire, where long-term study has established taxon-specific patterns of habitat use and diet. Modern...

The Iron Age in prehistoric Taiwan (ca. 2,000-800 BP) is considered a transitional time between the Neolithic and the Protohistoric period. During this time, Taiwan underwent a suite of sociocultural changes that gave way to a more complex social structure and lifeway in subsequent periods. Human health, gauged by physiological stress indicators, i...

The island of Carriacou in the southern Grenadines, Lesser Antilles, has been the focus of interdisciplinary archaeological research since 2003, focused on ceramic-associated assemblages dating between c. AD 400 and 1300. Amerindians here exploited marine foods, but patterned subsistence has not been inferred directly from recovered human remains....

Body size plays a critical role in mammalian ecology and physiology. Previous research has shown that many mammals became smaller during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), but the timing and magnitude of that change relative to climate change have been unclear. A high-resolution record of continental climate and equid body size change sho...

Archaeological and zooarchaeological data indicate that camelid pastoralism was a subsistence and economic mainstay of Middle Horizon and more recent cultures in the Osmore region of southern Peru. However, it is not known whether camelids were primarily herded in highland puna pastures or near lower elevation sites in the middle valley or along th...

The Preceramic occupation of Peru has historically received little attention from scholars. Recent excavations on the North-Central Coast of Peru have identified several large sites with monumental architecture dating to the Late Preceramic Period (3000–1800 BC). Monumental architecture and dense occupation at these sites indicates a degree of sede...

Bioarchaeology (osteoarchaeology) is the study of human remains in archaeological context. It may also be used in a general sense as the study of any biological remains (fauna and flora) recovered from an archaeology site. Increasingly, however, the term is used with regard to the identification and recovery of human skeletal remains in the field t...

Arguably the most important analytical approach in archaeology since radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analysis of recovered archaeological remains provides semi-quantitative evidence for past diets and ecology. Light stable isotopes of carbon (13C, 12C), nitrogen (15N, 14N), and oxygen ( 18O, 16O) are routinely used in biological and geological i...

This chapter provides a detailed overview of the contemporary cremation process that begins with a human body and ends with a volume of inorganic matter that can fit in a small box or an urn. It discusses various methods that cremation analysts have traditionally used to analyze cremated remains. The chapter also explores the potential of using che...

We explore diet and mobility in Middle Archaic Florida using human burials and faunal remains from the Harris Creek archaeological site (8Vo24) on Tick Island. We conducted stable carbon and oxygen isotopic (δ13C, δ18O) analyses of 50 human enamel samples and strontium isotopic (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of a subset of 10. Most individuals (46/50) subsis...

Heavy stable isotope analysis of mid-late Holocene Neolithic burials from Sarawak (Malaysia) identifies groups not apparent in mortuary treatment or inferred subsistence. Isotope ratios of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and lead (208Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 206Pb/204Pb) from adult tooth enamel show distinct groups at Niah Cave's West Mouth organized by dietar...