Dear Wolfram/Rhys

Not being an ornithologist, I dont know if redshanks have a marine or
terrestrial based diet but if it is mainly terrestrial it might help to
look at lead and strontium isotopes.

Paul Budd and I are working in collaboration with Jane Evans and Carolyn
Chenery at the NERC Isotope Geosciences Lab, Keyworth, Nottingham using
these geological-based systems along with oxygen to try and identify
migrant archaeological populations of people into and within the UK. We
are finding that combining the three systems gives us much better
information than using just one.

We are using tooth enamel as it seems to offers the best opportunity for
post-mortem preservation of the original signal but I dont see why you
cant use other body tissues like feathers and blood. Also, there should be
a clear difference in average crustal ratios and climatic separation
between Scotland and Iceland.

There's lots of refs in the geochemical, environmental and archaeological
literature on all three isotope systems as tracers but if you havent
already seen it you might like to start with this ref:

Chamberlain et al 1997. Oecologia Vol. 109 pt.1 p132-141. The use of
isotope tracers for identifying populations of migratory birds.

Regards

Janet

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Janet Montgomery
Department of Archaeological Sciences
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@