Carefully sourced, carefully managed: multi-isotopic analysis from Bronze and Iron Age equid teeth from Can Roqueta (Barcelona, Spain)

Abstract

Equids played an important role in the development of communication in past societies, and were part of the exchanges between populations. The multi-isotopic study (strontium, carbon and oxygen isotopes) conducted on equid teeth from Bronze and Early Iron Age Can Roqueta suggests that animals originate from diverse locations and their diet and watering was carefully managed. The enriched oxygen and carbon isotopic ratios in equid teeth compared with other taxa from the same site supports that equids may have drunk from water basins, thus creating a 13 C and 18 O isotopic enrichment and partial covariance, similar to a 'lake' effect. This is the most comprehensive study on equid mobility in Iberia so far.