Evolutionary Anthropology 83 Stable Isotope Studies in Human Evolution

The discipline of human evolution usually involves the evaluation of changes in gross and molecular morphology or changes in artifact assemblages. In contrast, stable isotope analysis is an indirect line of investigation. Understanding the human evolutionary sequence requires information on nutritional, biobehavioral, and gen-eral ecology. These are the kinds of information that stable isotope analysis can provide. Such studies may not identify the mechanisms for change, but their appli-cation serves to elucidate the situations under which change occurred. Stable isotope analysis has been coopted from other sciences. Its theo-retical base is in physics and its early applications were in geochemistry. Consequently, it melds aspects of an historical science (geology) with as-pects of an experimental science (chemistry) and a more theoretical science (physics). Such cooption is common in the study of human evolu-tion because its historical nature re-quires scholars to compile observations and to develop and apply new meth-ods of investigation. The purpose here is to introduce the reader to those areas of bioarcheology and paleoanthropology that have made use of stable isotope analyses.’-7 Although there have been recent appli-cations to the earlier part of the re-cord, the majority of stable isotope studies have focused on the latter por-tion of human evolution and thus have been restricted to the bioarcheological and archeological literature. First, however, it is necessary to include an introduction to the processes through which isotopic inferences are made. Margaret J. Schoeninger is professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has published extensively on aspects of nutritional ecology, with particular attention to dietary change among prehistoric human populations in North America, Europe, and Africa. Her most recent focus has been on the use of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in proteinaceous and mineral tissue as monitors of aspects of climate and ecology