New Statistical Approaches to Intra‐individual Isotopic Analysis and Modelling of Birth Seasonality in Studies of Herd Animals

Abstract

This paper introduces improved methods for statistically assessing birth seasonality and intra‐annual variation in δ18O from faunal tooth enamel. The first method estimates input parameters for use with a previously developed parametric approach by C. Tornero et al. The second method uses a non‐parametric clustering procedure to group individuals with similar time‐series data and estimate birth seasonality. This method was successful in analysing data from a modern sample with known season of birth, as well as two heterogeneous archaeological data sets. Modelling indicates that the non‐parametric approach estimates birth seasonality more successfully than the parametric method when less of the tooth row is preserved. The new approach offers a high level of statistical rigour and flexibility in dealing with the time‐series data produced through intra‐individual sampling in isotopic analysis.