The diet-body offset in human nitrogen isotopic values: A controlled dietary study

The trophic level enrichment between diet and body results in an overall increase in nitrogen isotopic values as the food chain is ascended. Quantifying the dietbody ?15N spacing has proved difficult, particularly for humans. The value is usually assumed to be +35 parts per thousand in the archaeological literature. We report here the first (to our knowledge) data from humans on isotopically known diets, comparing dietary intake and a body tissue sample, that of red blood cells. Samples were taken from 11 subjects on controlled diets for a 30-day period, where the controlled diets were designed to match each individual's habitual diet, thus reducing problems with short-term changes in diet causing isotopic changes in the body pool. The ?15Ndiet-RBC was measured as +3.5 parts per thousand. Using measured offsets from other studies, we estimate the human ?15Ndiet-keratin as +5.05.3 parts per thousand, which is in good agreement with values derived from the two other studies using individual diet records. We also estimate a value for ?15Ndiet-collagen of similar to 6 parts per thousand, again in combination with measured offsets from other studies. This value is larger than usually assumed in palaeodietary studies, which suggests that the proportion of animal protein in prehistoric human diet may have often been overestimated in isotopic studies of palaeodiet. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.