Author: Christine Adams
Adams, Christine, 2019 Do ‘dead men tell no tales’? Geographic origin of a mid-19th to early 20th century Anglican cemetery population in Adelaide, South Australia determined by strontium and oxygen isotope analyses of tooth enamel and dentine, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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Tooth enamel and dentine samples from thirteen individuals who were buried in the unmarked section of St Mary’s Anglican Cemetery, St Marys, Adelaide, were analysed for oxygen and strontium isotopic composition, to help determine if they were from Adelaide or were immigrants. The life history of these individuals is not documented in the historic record and so the results from the isotope analysis provide novel information on mobility in colonial South Australia. The results suggest that 38% of individuals may have been born in Adelaide, 23% may be from the United Kingdom and 39% may be from other areas of the world. 92% have different dentine and enamel values, suggesting either mobility during amelogenesis (enamel formation) or post burial diagenesis. The diversity of origins shown by the isotope analysis, mirror the results of skeletal morphology and historical records, which suggest that individuals from a range of ethnicities were buried at St Mary's cemetery.
Keywords: mobility, migration, nineteenth-century, 20th century, archaeology, migrants, St Mary's Anglican Cemetery, working-class, isotopes, strontium, oxygen, archaeological science, Adelaide, IRMS, TIMS, poverty, historical archaeology, cemetery, teeth, dentine, enamel, Anglican, Christian, Europeans
Subject: Archaeology thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2019
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Dr Ian Moffat and Professor Donald Pate