Contribution of strontium to the human diet from querns and millstones: an experiment in digestive strontium isotope uptake

Johnson, Lucie; Montgomery, Janet; Evans, Jane; Hamilton, Elliot

doi:10.1111/arcm.12485

Contribution of strontium to the human diet from querns and millstones: an experiment in digestive strontium isotope uptake

Johnson, Lucie; Montgomery, Janet; Evans, Jane; Hamilton, Elliot

Authors

Lucie Johnson

Professor Janet Montgomery janet.montgomery@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Jane Evans

Elliot Hamilton

Abstract

The question of whether rock grit ingested unintentionally from querns, metates or millstones or deliberately through pica or geophagy is bioaccessible in the human gut has not been addressed in archaeological Sr-isotope studies. This study employed the Unified Bioaccessibility Method and determined that ingested rock grit can provide bioaccessible 87Sr/86Sr, but that unintentional consumption is unlikely to constitute more than 1% of the diet (by mass) and will not significantly change, i.e. by > 0.001, human skeletal 87Sr/86Sr. The use of locally or non-locally sourced querns or millstones will not affect the interpretation of archaeological human 87Sr/86Sr values in Britain. Keywords: Strontium, 87Sr/86Sr, bioaccessible, quern, millstone, grinding stone, metates, human diet, Millstone Grit, Pennant sandstone, Eskdale granite.

Citation

Johnson, L., Montgomery, J., Evans, J., & Hamilton, E. (2019). Contribution of strontium to the human diet from querns and millstones: an experiment in digestive strontium isotope uptake. Archaeometry, 61(6), 1366-1381. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12485

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Apr 11, 2019
Online Publication Date	Jun 10, 2019
Publication Date	Dec 31, 2019
Deposit Date	Jan 29, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jun 14, 2019
Journal	Archaeometry
Print ISSN	0003-813X
Electronic ISSN	1475-4754
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	61
Issue	6
Pages	1366-1381
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12485

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Advance online version © 2019 The Authors Archaeometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of University of Oxford. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.