Assessing the potential for dietary reconstruction from skeletal and isotopic data

Download

PDF (Uncorrected pre-print) - Pre print Restricted to Admin only Download (144Kb)

Description/Abstract

The results presented here indicate that although the actual nutritional components of the Egyptian diet remained constant over the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, the methods by which they were processed and consumed differed. Furthermore these results have demonstrated the importance of maintaining an integrated approach to dietary analysis. By comparing the skeletal, dental and isotopic results, it is clear that the changes in Egyptian diet occurred as a result of processing differences. This means that future dietary research must link the archaeological evidence, such as from changes in fishhook and bread mould morphology, with the actual skeletal evidence. Further research is also required to refine the isotopic analysis as the current comparative material does not all originate from the same sites as the sources for the human remains