Improving the temporal representativity of dentin serial samples in stable isotope studies

The stable isotope composition of dental tissues allows for the exploration of childhood diet. With traditional methods, the accuracy of dating the samples to gain precise information on the schedule of dietary changes has however been rather poor. The more recent methodological advances have enhanced the dating of samples but generally require expensive, complicated technologies. Not only assigning correct developmental periods to each dentin sample but also their temporal overlapping causes problems as rather than a reflection of diets of subsequent periods, these values represent rolling averages. This short paper proposes a novel method to reduce the temporal overlapping of dentin samples in stable isotope studies utilizing stable isotope analyses of carbon and nitrogen.