A multi‐isotope, multi‐tissue study of diets in industrialised societies of 17th to 19th century England
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Palaeodietary research using isotope analysis has recently expanded and this research takes a novel approach by employing carbon isotope analysis of bone carbonate in conjunction with bone collagen for the first time, to explore 17th to 19th century diets in English populations. Central to the research, is the potential consumption of C4 crops (cane sugar/maize) which increased during this period. Additionally, it pays special attention to regional, local, age, sex, race, and socioeconomic variations in the diet in selected northern manufacturing towns and London populations in England. Finally, this research explores the potential for using isotope analysis of human dental calculus carbonate as a new proxy for cane sugar consumption investigations. Collagen isotope analysis was performed on 244 human and 168 faunal remains from (i) post-medieval sites in Halifax, Leeds, London, Manchester, Rotherham, Tunstall and York (ii) medieval sites in Southwell, Leicester, and Chester as well as (iii) modern individuals from the Forensic Anthropology Center, Tennessee, USA. In addition, FTIR-ATR was utilised to assess diagenesis, and both FTIR-ATR and bone carbonate analyses were performed on 273 human bones, 27 faunal bones, and 57 dental calculus samples. Finally, enamel and calculus carbonate analyses were performed on 57 samples. Overall, variations in the diet, especially consumption of C4 resources and animal protein were observed between and within different populations by geographical location, age, and socioeconomic status. The combination of bone carbonate and collagen isotope analysis using linear and multivariate modelling enabled the identification of C4 resource consumption. Londoners consumed more animal and marine protein as well as C4 resources potentially cane sugar. Additionally, the middle- and upper-class populations from both London and northern populations had greater access to these foods compared to those of lower status. Results from a pilot study indicated that although dental calculus has the potential to be used in palaeodietary studies, it cannot yet be used to ascertain C4 cane sugar consumption.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".