Dietary and physiological controls on the hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios of hair from mid-20th century indigenous populations

Abstract

A semimechanistic model has recently been proposed to explain observed correlations between the H and O isotopic composition of hair from modern residents of the USA and the isotopic composition of drinking water, but the applicability of this model to hair from non-USA and preglobalization populations is unknown. Here we test the model against data from hair samples collected during the 1930s-1950s from populations of five continents. Although C and N isotopes confirm that the samples represent a much larger range of dietary "space" than the modern USA residents, the model is able to reproduce the observed delta(2)H and delta(18)O values given reasonable adjustments to 2 model parameters: the fraction of dietary intake derived from locally produced foods and the fraction of keratin H fixed during the in vivo synthesis of amino acids. The model is most sensitive to the local dietary intake, which appears to constitute between 60% and 80% of diet among the groups sampled. The isotopic data are consistent with a trophic-level effect on protein H isotopes, which we suggest primarily reflects mixing of (2)H-enriched water and (2)H-depleted food H in the body rather than fractionation during biosynthesis. Samples from Inuit groups suggest that humans with marine-dominated diets can be identified on the basis of coupled delta(2)H and delta(18)O values of hair. These results indicate a dual role for H and O isotopic measurements of keratin, including both biological (diet, physiology) and environmental (geographic movement, paleoclimate) reconstruction.