Research project
PastPorts: tracking migrant origins with an integrated isotopic approach
How can wide-scale applications of isotope analyses and isotope mapping contribute to the identification of ancient migrants and their origins in the Western Caribbean? Can we observe linkages between individual behaviors and long-term patterns, for example as manifested in continuous waves of migration? Can the methods and approaches be integrated and further developed so that they can be applied to any region in the world?
- Duration
- 2024 - 2029
- Contact
- Jason Laffoon
- Funding
-
NWO Vidi
- Partners
Geology & Geochemistry Cluster at Faculty of Science, VU Amsterdam
Our geographic origins, the places where we were born and raised, play an important role in our sense of identity. As such, migrations have potentially profound impacts on both individuals and communities in the present and in the past. This project develops and applies new tools for investigating migrant origins from the archaeological record and focuses on better understanding migration histories amongst the Indigenous communities of the Caribbean region based on multiple isotope analyses of the physical remains of the migrants themselves. Laffoon and his team will research several fundamental aspects of migration and their implications at multiple scales.
Tracing Migrations
Migration is one of the most essential behaviors defining the human experience and migrations have had profound influences on the course of human history.
The PastPorts project will focus on the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean region, which possesses the requisite spatial variation in multiple isotope systems and abundant evidence for dynamic migrations at multiple scales that contributed to the enormous socio-cultural and biological diversity in the pre-colonial and colonial periods. The project will provide key insights into the history of migrations in this region and develop a new framework for investigating the origins of ancient migrants in archaeological research.
Isotopic Journeys
The PastPorts project focuses on two connected overarching goals:
- Conducting fundamental research assessing the isotopic ecology of the Caribbean region; and
- Determining the geographic origins of ancient migrants.
These goals will be achieved by refining and integrating several cutting-edge advances in isotope analyses, modelling spatial variation of multiple isotopes using machine learning approaches (isoscapes), and predicting individual origins using quantitative geographic assignment approaches. Recent research, including pioneering studies led by the applicant, have demonstrated the potential of these methods to identify the geographic origins of migrants with increasing precision.
Collaborative Isotope Research
The project is embedded within the Department of Archaeological Sciences (Bioarchaeology research group) Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University (LU). Sample processing will take place in the dedicated Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry (LU) under the supervision of the PI (who is manager of this lab).
The project will work in close collaboration with the Department of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA), where the PI has a long-term research collaboration having previously conducted the analytical component of his PhD research, as well as being employed for several years as a postdoc, and maintains a rolling status as a guest researcher. The proposed project will also take advantage of the new, modern laboratory being established at the VUA: The ‘Netherlands state-of-the-art Isotope GEochemistry Laboratory’ (NIGEL) funded by the NWO (Groot). Leiden University is a partner in the NIGEL project, for which the applicant is a Co-PI.
Measurements of isotope composition of carbon and nitrogen (collagen); and strontium, oxygen and carbon (enamel) will be conducted at the VUA. Measurements of sulfur isotopes (collagen) will be conducted at the Brussels Bioarchaeology Lab (BB-LAB) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB). Key samples will be radiocarbon dated at the Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), University of Groningen.
Innovating Migration Research
The PastPorts project leverages and advances recent developments in archaeological science (big data, quantitative modelling, and isotope analysis) to address fundamental questions about human migration. It builds upon but differs from previous isotopic research in the region by improving our fundamental understanding of baseline isotopic variation in the Caribbean, integrating data from multiple independent isotope proxies, and systematically applying iterative Bayesian analyses to multiple isoscapes. Combining these recent advances, this project aims to generate new insights into regional migration dynamics in the Caribbean region where various lines of archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence indicate the existence of networks of long-distance interaction since the earliest colonization of the archipelago.