The Isotope Archaeology team at the VU is playing leading roles in numerous national and international research projects, providing innovative new sampling techniques, the analysis of small sample sizes, developing new isoscapes and applying new isotopic techniques, such as Nd isotopes for human provenancing. The VU has established strong and successful collaborations with the national University archaeology departments (VU, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen) museums (Naturalis Biodiversity Centre), Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE), government bodies (provinces, municipalities) and their archaeological services, and numerous independent archaeological excavation companies in the Netherlands (e.g., ADC ArcheoProjecten, RAAP, ACVU HBS). These collaborative projects have resulted in invaluable new insights into palaeomobility patterns and palaeodietary preferences of Dutch (pre)historic populations. The team aims to make all data scientifically accessible through the KNAW repository DANS EASY as well as scientific publications (see below).
Two of the major recent projects have focussed on Caribbean Archaeology developing from a long standing collaboration with Prof Corinne Hofman at Leiden University.
SYNERGY PROJECT: NEXUS1492
The international ERC-Synergy research project NEXUS1492 investigates the impacts of colonial encounters in the Caribbean, the nexus of the first interactions between the New and the Old World. NEXUS1492 addresses intercultural Amerindian-European-African dynamics at multiple temporal and spatial scales across the historical divide of 1492.
Following the highly successful completion of the ERC project, NEXUS1492 collaborator continue to address intercultural Amerindian-European-African dynamics at multiple temporal and spatial scales across the historical divide of 1492. This trans-disciplinary synergy project developed new analytical tools, applied multi-disciplinary cutting-edge techniques, evaluated theoretical frameworks and transferred skill sets to provide a novel perspective on New World encounters in a globalizing world. Cooperating with local experts we developed sustainable heritage management strategies, creating a future for the past. A past which is under threat from looting, illegal trade, construction development, and natural disasters (e.g., climate change, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions). Placing the Caribbean’s indigenous past within a contemporary heritage agenda will increase the awareness and protection of heritage resources.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/nexus1492/about
The museum exhibition Caribbean Ties, connected people then and now has been developed in broad collaboration between NEXUS1492, local partners in the Caribbean, and partners in The Netherlands. It has been translated into six languages including Spanish, French, Papiamento, Guadeloupian Creole, Dutch, and English. The exhibition will initially be displayed in 12 museums across the Caribbean, with plans to travel further to other Caribbean countries in the future. Hosting countries in the Caribbean include Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Eustatius, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Barbados, Grenada, Suriname, and Aruba.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/nexus1492/caribbean-ties
A complimentary project; Stone interchanges within the Bahama archipelago (SIBA, ‘stone’ in Classic Taíno dialect) is joint project with Joanna Ostapkowicz from University of Oxford funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project aims to characterize the regional social networks that bound the Lucayan archipelago to the wider Caribbean region, and so provide an understanding of the creation and maintenance of indigenous exchange networks, and their associated economic, cultural and socio-political impacts.
https://siba.web.ox.ac.uk/
FORENSIC SCIENCE
The VU forensic isotope provenance team works with the Netherlands Forensic Institute and national and international police forces and the UN on both cold cases and current murders to aid with identification. Brief outlines and links to 3 high profile cases that used multi-isotope techniques (H-C-N-O-Sr-Pb) on a variety of human tissues to determine a provenance life history of an unidentified person are given below:
Perhaps the most high profile case is that of the “Heulmeisje”, which involved the incorrect identification of a body discovered in October 1976 as that of Monique Jacobse. Thirty years later Monique contacted her family to say that she was alive and living in Germany. The VU team analysed hair keratin, dental enamel, and bone collagen and apatite to determine the movements in the years prior to death. Numerous links to the case can be found on line and to TV programs (Opsporing Verzocht).
Body on the moor: Featured on TV by the BBC and Channel 4 in several programmes this case started on Jun 7, 2016, when cyclist Stuart Crowther discovered a body on Saddleworth Moor, part of the Peak District National Park, above Manchester. The multi-disciplinary research undertaken for the case was also featured in one of seven BBC podcasts that follow the development of the case:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wy14r/episodes/downloads
The isotopic data concluded that the person was most probably British in origin but had spent many years in warmer and drier parts of the world, potentially north-central Pakistan.
Burgenland, Austrian: Research has included a cold case for the Austrian police who re-opened the Burgenland case in 2017. In 1993, a partly skeletised body of a woman, wrapped in plastic bags, was found beneath bushes in a horse paddock in Burgenland, Austria, close to the Hungary/ Slovakia borders. Based on the conclusion of our isotope report, the police concentrated further investigations on the prostitution circles in the region of Austria where the body was found. The police investigated a missing prostitute from the Dominican Republic and through Interpol obtained a DNA-profile from her sister that proved a genetic match. Within a few weeks of receipt of the isotope report, the woman was identified. Here is a link to an article in an Austrian newspaper:
http://kurier.at/chronik/burgenland/frauenmord-identitaet-nach-23-jahren-geklaert/214.934.876
CULTURAL HERITAGE
The VU team works closely with national museums to produce more detailed biographies of individual artworks to help understand how they age, and the best way to preserve them for posterity. Our isotopic studies provide an improved understanding of the changing socio-economic factors (wars, political alliances, mining practices) that controlled the availability of raw materials, their physio-chemical properties and the technological developments that shaped the different techniques used in the production of artworks. Studies have focussed on the manufacture and use of oil paints and metal artworks (bronze and silver). This has included publications on Vermeer’s “Girl with the a Pearl Earring”. The role of isotope research was recently highlighted in several episodes of the six part TV series Historisch Bewijs that critically examined the stories behind iconic national items. Work on the paint purported to be from Rembrandt’s own collection is discussed in episode 2 and the origin of silver used to make a ~0.5m wide platter for the famous privateer Piet Heyn features in episode 4.
Key papers:
- Brusgaard N, Fokkens H, Kootker LM (2019). An isotopic perspective on the socio-economic significance of livestock in Bronze Age West-Frisia, the Netherlands (2000–800 BCE). J. Archaeological Science: Reports 27, 101944
- Knaf ACS, Koornneef JM, Davies GR. “Non-invasive” portable laser ablation sampling of art and archaeological materials with subsequent Sr–Nd isotope analysis by TIMS using 1013 Ω amplifiers. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry 2017, 32(11): 2210-2216.
- Kootker LM, van Lanen RJ, Groenewoudt BJ, Altena E, Panhuysen RGAM, Jansma E, Kars H, Davies GR (2019). Beyond isolation: understanding past human-population variability in the Dutch town of Oldenzaal through the origin of its inhabitants and its infrastructural connections. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11 (3), 755-775.
- Kootker LM, Geerdink C, Van den Broeke PW, Kars H, Davies GR (2018). Breaking Traditions: An Isotopic Study on the Changing Funerary Practices in the Dutch Iron Age (800–12 bc). Archaeometry 60 (3), 594-611.
- Plomp E, von Holstein ICC, Koornneef JM, Smeets RJ, Baart JA, Forouzanfar T, et al. Evaluation of neodymium isotope analysis of human dental enamel as a provenance indicator using 1013 Ω amplifiers (TIMS). Science & Justice 2019, 59(3): 322-331.
- Van Loon A, Vandivere A, Delaney J, Dooley K, De Meyer S, Vanmeert F, Janssens K, Gonzalez V, Leonhardt E, Haswell R, de Groot S, Proaño Gaibor AN, D’Imporzano P, Davies GR (2019). Beauty is skin deep: the skin tones of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Heritage Science doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0344-0.