Dietary reconstruction from historical information and trace elements analysis in a medieval population from Catalonia (Spain)

Abstract

The analysis of Trace Elements in bone and its application to the determination of ancient human population's ecology and adaptation is focussed. The Sr/Ca and Zn/Ca indexes of the medieval population of L'Esquerda, (Barcelona, Spain) by time periods are compared with other independent information available for the same site. The results obtained with the Trace Element Analysis greatly agree with what was expected from the historical and archeological information. The results must be considered carefully, though, because of the relatively small sample size involved when dividing the sample into time periods. Nevertheless, the technique used may provide a good ecological and adaptive information of ancient human populations, that can be used for comparing populations from different areas.