Beyond Teeth: What efforts to improve the resolution of isotopic analyses tell us about Open Science and statistical reform

In a recent study, I led a team of biologists, archaeologists and geochemists in a quest to understand the social mechanisms that underpinned ritual feasting at the Early Neolithic site of Asiab in western Iran (Vaiglova et al., 2025). We used a technique that had been applied time and time again for probing seasonal mobility patterns of past animals: the analysis of sequential tooth enamel stable oxygen isotope values and strontium isotope ratios. But, the way we went about obtaining our measurements was very different from previous studies. Instead of removing powdered enamel from the surface of teeth at approximately 1mm-wide intervals (e.g., Balasse, 2002; Vaiglova et al., 2018), we used microscopic growth patterns inside the teeth to guide our analyses.