Mediterranean Bioarchaeology, Meta-Analysis and Migration

Towards Accurate Meta-Analyses in Mediterranean Bioarchaeology: A Critical Response to Leppard et al. (JMA 33, 2020)

Authors

  • Megan A Perry East Carolina University
  • Kristina Killgrove University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
  • Lesley A Gregoricka University of South Alabama
  • Tracy L Prowse McMaster University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.23771

Keywords:

Mediterranean Bioarchaeology, Meta-Analysis, Migration, Mediterranean, Bioarchaeology, Accurate Meta-Analyses

Abstract

.

Author Biographies

  • Megan A Perry, East Carolina University

    Megan Perry is a bioarchaeologist and Professor of Anthropology at East Carolina University whose research focuses on paleopathology and biogeochemistry of communities in first-century bc to seventh-century ad Jordan. She currently directs the Petra North Ridge Project in Jordan.

  • Kristina Killgrove, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

    Kristina Killgrove is a bioarchaeologist whose research focuses on understanding the lives of non-elites in Italy during the Imperial period. Her latest projects are a DNA analysis of human remains from Gabii and a full osteological report of the individuals who died at Oplontis in ad 79.

  • Lesley A Gregoricka, University of South Alabama

    Lesley Gregoricka is a bioarchaeologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Alabama. Her research focuses on prehistoric mortuary practices and the bio-geochemistry of ancient human skeletal remains to examine changing patterns of mobility and social complexity across Arabia and the Levant.

  • Tracy L Prowse, McMaster University

    Tracy Prowse is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University. She is the director of excavations at the Roman site of Vagnari, southern Italy. She has published on diet, mobility and health in Roman Italy through the use of stable isotopes and paleopathological analyses.

References

AlQahtani, S., M. Hector and H. Liversidge 2010 Brief communication: the London atlas of human tooth development and eruption. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 142: 481-90. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.21258

Bentley, R.A. 2006 Strontium isotopes from the earth to the archaeological skeleton: a review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13: 135-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-006-9009-x

Braudel, F. 1972 The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Row.

Brettell, C., and J.F. Hollifield 2015 Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines. Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor and Francis.

Broodbank, C. 2013 The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. London: Thames and Hudson.

Bruun, C. 2010 Water, oxygen isotopes, and immigration to Ostia-Portus. Journal of Roman Archaeology 23: 109-32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1047759400002324

Cangemi, I. 2016 A Scale-Free, Relational Approach to Social Development in Late-Prehistoric Tyrrhenian Central Italy. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.

Cousineau, D., and S. Chartier 2010 Outliers detection and treatment: a review. International Journal of Psychological Research 3: 58-67. https://doi.org/10.21500/20112084.844

Goldstein, S.L., P. Deines, E.H. Oelkers, R.L. Rudnick and L.M. Walter 2003 Standards for publication of isotope ratio and chemical data in Chemical Geology. Chemical Geology 202: 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2003.08.003

Gregoricka, L. 2021 Moving forward: a bioarchaeology of mobility and migration. Journal of Archaeological Research 29: 581-635. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-020-09155-9

Gregoricka, L., and S.G. Sheridan 2017 Continuity or conquest? A multi-isotope approach to investigating identity in the Early Iron Age of the southern Levant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 162: 73-89. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23086

Grimstead, D.N., S. Nugent and J. Whipple 2017 Why a standardization of strontium isotope baseline environmental data is needed and recommendations for methodology. Advances in Archaeological Practice 5: 184-95. https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2017.6

Holt, E., J.A. Evans and R. Madgwick 2021 Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) mapping: a critical review of methods and approaches. Earth-Science Reviews 216: 103593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103593

Horden, P., and N. Purcell 2000 The Corrupting Sea: A Study in Mediterranean History. Oxford: Blackwell.

Killgrove, K. 2010 A response to C. Bruun, ‘Water, oxygen isotopes and immigration to Ostia-Portus’. Journal of Roman Archaeology 23: 133-36. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1047759400002336

Imperialism and physiological stress in Rome and its environs (1st–3rd centuries AD). In M.S. Murphy and H.D. Klaus (eds.), Colonized Bodies, Worlds Transformed: Toward a Global Bioarchaeology of Contact and Colonialism, 247-77. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx0725r.14

Killgrove, K., and J. Montgomery 2016 All roads lead to Rome: exploring human migration to the eternal city through biochemistry of skeletons from two Imperial-era cemeteries (1st-3rd c AD). PLoS One 11: e0147585. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147585

Leys, C., C. Ley, O. Klein, P. Bernard and L. Licata 2013 Detecting outliers: do not use standard deviation around the mean, use absolute deviation around the median. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49: 764-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.03.013

Lightfoot, E., and T.C. O’Connell 2016 On the use of biomineral oxygen isotope data to identify human migrants in the archaeological record: intra-sample variation, statistical methods and geographical considerations. PLoS ONE 11: e0153850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153850

Montgomery, J., J.A. Evans, S.R. Chenery, V. Pashley and K. Killgrove 2010 ‘Gleaming, white and deadly’: using lead to track human exposure and geographic origins in the Roman period in Britain. In H. Eckardt (ed.), Roman Diasporas: Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 78: 199-226. Portsmouth, Rhode Island: Journal of Roman Archaeology

Perry, M.A. 2018 Anatomy of restlessness: strontium isotopes and human migration in the Graeco-Roman Near East. In J. Yoo, A. Zerbini and C. Barron (eds.), Migration and Migrant Identities in the Near East from Antiquity to Middle Ages, 187-213. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351254762-9

Perry, M.A., D.S. Coleman, D.L. Dettman and A.H. al-Shiyab 2009 An isotopic perspective on the transport of Byzantine mining camp laborers into southwestern Jordan. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 140: 429-44. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.21085

Perry, M.A., C. Jennings and D.S. Coleman 2017 Strontium isotope evidence for long-distance immigration into the Byzantine port city of Aila, modern Aqaba, Jordan. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 9: 943-64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0314-3

Price, T.D., J.H. Burton and R.A. Bentley 2002 The characterization of biologically available strontium isotope ratios for the study of prehistoric migration. Archaeometry 44: 117-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4754.00047

Prowse, T.L., H.P. Schwarcz, P. Garnsey, M. Knyf, R. Macchiarelli and L. Bondioli 2007 Isotopic evidence for age-related immigration to imperial Rome. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132: 510-19. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20541

Salesse, K., R. Fernandes, X. de Rochefort, J. Bružek, D. Castex and E. Dufour 2018 IsoArcH.eu: an open-access and collaborative isotope database for bioarchaeological samples from the Graeco-Roman world and its margins. Journal of Archaeological Science, Reports 19: 1050-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.07.030

Scaffidi, B.K., and K.J. Knudson 2020 An archaeological strontium isoscape for the prehistoric Andes: understanding population mobility through a geostatistical meta-analysis of archaeological 87Sr/86Sr values from humans, animals, and artifacts. Journal of Archaeological Science 117: 105121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105121

Wall, A.J., R.C. Capo, B.W. Stewart, T.T. Phan, J.C. Jain, J.A. Hakala and G.D. Guthrie 2016 High-Throughput Method for Strontium Isotope Analysis by Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer NETL Technical Reports Series 12-2016. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: National Energy Technology Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.2172/1361494

Weber, W., T. Tacail, F. Lugli … R. Mertz-Kraus and T. Tüken 2020 Strontium uptake and intra-population 87Sr/86Sr variability of bones and teeth – controlled feeding experiments with rodents (Rattus norvegicus, Cavia porcellus). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8: 569940. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.569940

Wright, L.E. 2005 Identifying immigrants to Tikal, Guatemala: defining local variability in strontium isotope ratios of human tooth enamel. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 555-566. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2004.11.011

Downloads

Published

2022-09-07

Issue

Vol. 35 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Discussion and Debate

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Perry, M. A., Killgrove, K., Gregoricka, L. A., & Prowse, T. L. (2022). Mediterranean Bioarchaeology, Meta-Analysis and Migration: Towards Accurate Meta-Analyses in Mediterranean Bioarchaeology: A Critical Response to Leppard et al. (JMA 33, 2020). Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 35(1), 108-132. https://doi.org/10.1558/jma.23771