Diet during life. Paleoeconomic studies of human diet using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes

The scientific analysis of archaeological remains has the potential to inform us about the diet of past individuals. Isotopic analysis gives insight into the daily practice of food consumption and thereby diet's relationship to individual, familial, and cultural organisation. Paleodietary reconstruction using light stable isotopes is based on the principle that "you are what you eat" - that molecules consumed as food are incorporated into the consumer's body tissues ant therefore that a chemical signal passing either unchanged or altered in a quantifiable fashion from food into the body can provide dietary information.