Isotopic Investigation Of The Origins Of Homicide Victims From Qasr Hallabat

Abstract

The issue of human mobility is of foremost interest in archaeology, as are the methods through which it is studied. Direct study of human remains for information on mobility during an individual's lifetime has become possible in the last decades with the advent of isotopic testing. The following study uses the methods of strontium and oxygen isotopic ratios to investigate whether six individuals, who were discovered in a disused cistern, at Qasr Hallabat spent their early childhood at the site. This question will be addressed by comparing locally and regionally established bioavailable strontium levels to the levels in the skeletal remains from Qasr Hallabat. The results of this research indicate that oxygen isotopic ratios fall slightly above the expected range for Qasr Hallabat. Strontium isotopic values of all six individuals are indicative of a region characterized by volcanic soils or a mixed soil composition dominated by volcanic soil, and/or the individuals traveled during childhood, resulting in mixed signature of strontium from multiple geologic regions. Studies of this nature are critical to adding to the corpus of evidence for the use of the methodology around the world, but particularly in the Near East where this method has yet to be widely utilized.