SOUTH AFRICA SUMMER 2001    
                         

Cape Town - the city bowl from the top of Table Mountain
            

Cape Town - taken from Robben Island
                                                   
This summer I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa in order to conduct research concerning hominid diet through the chemical analysis of fossil bone. During the first part of my trip, I traveled to Cape Town in the very southern part of the country. While their, I attended a seminar course taught by Julia Lee-Thorp and Nikolaas van der Merwe, experts on the chemical analysis of bone in the Archaeology Department at the University of Cape Town . The course focused on stable isotopic analysis using carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopes. For a description of how stable isotopes are measured and what the applications are of this technique to evolutionary and human studies, please visit Robert Tykot's Bone Chemistry site .

During the first part of the isotope seminar, the theoretical foundations were laid for how isotopes occur and how they can be measured. We also examined the applications of stable isotope analysis in various industries and disciplines, including marine sciences, conservation studies, evolutionary and anthropological investigations. The second half of the stable isotope seminar allowed students to gain hands on experience working in a preparation lab and with an ICP Mass Spectrometer, the machine that measures isotope ratios. My project consisted of analyzing the efficacy of oxygen isotope ratios as a measure of trophic levels. To do this, I built on earlier work by Julia Lee-Thorpe and Matt Sponheimer (1999) at the Equus Cave site in South Africa. Numerous species of carnivores and herbivore fossil bones were selected from the site for analysis, including hyaenas, spring box, grey dukier, and zebra. Earlier research demonstrated that oxygen isotope ratios do discriminate between carnivores and herbivores, however a small sample size was examined and out-of -date techniques were employed. In the current study, I have expanded the sample size to include an additional 30 samples. Current protocol was used in the preparation of these samples and enamel hydroxyapatite was analyzed on a newer ICP-MS than that used in the previous study. Preliminary results do suggest that oxygen isotopes are an effective way to discriminate between herbivores and carnivores at the Equus Cave site.

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