Cross-Analysis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in hairs retrieved from crania of Korean Joseon Dynasty Mummies and Russian Settlers in Siberia

Abstract

A specific human population’s diet can be estimated by analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bones or other organic materials unearthed at archaeological sites. In the present study, we investigated the dietary patterns of two agrarian populations of the Eurasian continent to determine if they might show heterogeneities despite their temporal and lifestyle commonalities. Hairs from mummies representative of Joseon Dynasty Koreans and the remains of Russian settlers in Siberia were analyzed by a stable-isotope technique and further compared with corresponding data on Edo-period Japanese. In brief, the 17th to 18th century Russian settlers, a Western population that had partially adopted a native-Siberian dietary strategy, lived on C3 plants and protein-rich foods relative to the Koreans and Japanese. The highest δ13C value among the three groups was observed in the Koreans’ hairs, indicating that their diet had been more C4 plants-based. The second-highest δ15N value (statistically higher than that of the Japanese samples) likewise was found in Korean hairs. In this study, we could conclude that all three Eurasian groups relied on a subsistence agricultural economy during the 16th to 19th centuries but that their dietary lifeways had somewhat diverged.