High δ <sup>15</sup> N values in Predynastic Egyptian archeological remains: A potential indicator for localised soil fertilisation practices in extreme conditions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Predynastic Egypt arose around 5700 BC when nomadic people settled in the Nile Valley. Without voluntary practice related to anthropic mummification, as will be seen with the Egyptian Dynastic empires, human remains from this period were naturally mummified because of the natural environmental conditions, possibly enveloped in plant mats and animal skins. This study focuses on four mummies from the Natural History Museum of Musée des Confluences in Lyon (France). The geographic origin of the mummies and climatic conditions at that time were deduced from ο 18 O measurements on teeth and bones. These measurements confirm that the primary source of drinking water was the Nile, and that one mummy of unknown origin also originated from Upper Egypt like the other three. The diet and life habits of these individuals were inferred from carbon (ο 13 C), nitrogen (ο 15 N) and sulfur (ο 34 S) isotope compositions of their skins and bone collagens. Our study is of particular interest as we were able to analyse the animal skins and plant material enveloping the mummies using the same isotopic systems. The mean ο 15 N values obtained in human skins (17.9±2.4‰, AIR) were found to be high, and consistent with the values measured in animal skins (16.0±2.9‰, AIR). The analysed plants have even higher values, with an average of 22.1±2.2‰, AIR. The most probable explanation for the markedly elevated δ 15 N values observed in all the materials investigated is localised soil amendment practices. This is corroborated by the consistent nitrogen isotopic signatures across all the examined tissues, with a notable prevalence in plant tissues.
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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".