The isotope record of short- and long-term dietary changes in sheep tooth enamel: Implications for quantitative reconstruction of paleodiets

Seasonality and season of birth of modern and late Neolithic sheep from south-eastern France using tooth enamel δ18O analysis

“…The shift between the expected and measured signal might correspond to the time required for mineralization, around half a seasonal cycle (approximately 6 months). This estimation is similar to that observed in other sheep (Zazzo et al 2010).…”

A refined sampling strategy for intra-tooth stable isotope analysis of mammalian enamel

“…These two groups of animals were moved to the Teagasc Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Grange, Dunsany, Co. Meath, Ireland during the summer of 2006 and penned individually to be part of a diet-switch experiment (C 3 -C 4 -C 3 ). More information about the diet-switch experiment can be found in (Zazzo et al, 2008(Zazzo et al, , 2010.…”

“…Moreover this model was designed for teeth like hippopotamuses canines or rodent incisors which are thought to have constant mineralization parameters (length of apposition la, length of maturation lm, growth rate). Recent work on sheep teeth suggested that despite a relatively good fit between the forward model of Passey and Cerling (2002) and experimental data, small discrepancies were observed which could be explained by the fact that these parameters may vary over time in teeth with finite growth (Zazzo et al, 2010).…”

“…As the approach has gained in popularity, controlled experiments on rodents, rabbits, cattle and sheep demonstrated that changes in the isotopic composition of environmental parameters (food, drinking water) are not instantaneously recorded in tooth enamel (Balasse, 2002;Passey et al, 2005;Zazzo et al, 2005Zazzo et al, , 2010Podlesak et al, 2008). This is, in part, due to turnover time of water and bicarbonate in the body fluids, but is primarily due to the time it takes enamel to mature.…”

“…Each enamel subsample represents a time-averaged signal, regardless of sample size and sampling methodology, and the variations recorded along the tooth length are attenuated relative to the isotopic variations experienced by the animal during tooth mineralization (Passey and Cerling, 2002). The degree of dampening depends on the structure of the input signal: short-term isotopic excursions are more attenuated than long-term variations (Passey and Cerling, 2002;Kohn, 2004;Zazzo et al, 2010). It also depends on the duration of the mineralization process which is species-specific and can vary from a few weeks in rodents (Podlesak et al, 2008) to $6 months in sheep and cattle (Balasse, 2002;Zazzo et al, 2010).…”