Saint-Jean de Todon and Saint-Victor-la-Coste: Staple isotopic analysis
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1Two Medieval Christian cemeteries (9th to 13th AD) located in southern France near Laudun l’Ardoise, held the remains of adult males, females, and non-adults. The elite site of Saint-Jean de Todon sits on the Lacau plateau, a boundary that marks a clear division from the lower-class cemetery of Saint-Victor-la-Coste. To understand how diet was affected by the evolution of the Christian church, and how it may have differed between those buried in each cemetery, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was employed on bone collagen from 196 individuals. The Saint-Jean values for bone collagen nitrogen and carbon (n=180) range from 8.1‰ to 12.5‰ for δ15N, and -21.6‰ to -17.6‰ for δ13C. The Saint-Victor values for bone collagen nitrogen and carbon (n=16) range from 8.5‰ to 10.8‰ for δ15N, and -20.9‰ to -18.4‰ for δ13C. Although the individuals from Saint-Jean held a higher status, carbon and nitrogen isotope data indicate a differentiated diet, possibly suggesting a hierarchy within the elite group.
2Funding: Research funding for this project came from the Trevor Colbourn Anthropology Endowment Fund, the University of Central Florida Doctoral Research Support Award, and the University of Central Florida’s Department of Anthropology.
References
Electronic reference
Jane Holmstrom, Tosha Dupras, Yann Ardagna and Laurent Vidal, “Saint-Jean de Todon and Saint-Victor-la-Coste: Staple isotopic analysis”, Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris [Online], 34(S) | 2022, Online since 31 December 2021, connection on 12 September 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/bmsap/8904; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/bmsap.8904
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