Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 24(114), p. 6268-6273, 2017

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704412114

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Assessing human weaning practices with calcium isotopes in tooth enamel

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance The practice of weaning, the dietary transition from exclusive breastfeeding to exclusive nonmilk food, is a key aspect of development and evolution of hominins, but its study in the fossil record is hampered by a lack of unambiguous biomarkers. Ca stable isotope ratios of skeletal remains are expected to bear information about milk consumption. Here we demonstrate that modern human tooth enamel records a temporal variation of Ca isotope compositions, which is related to breastfeeding duration. Ca isotopes could be used as a biomarker for reconstruction of weaning practices in past human and fossil hominin species.