Papers by Britney Kyle (McIlvaine)
The 88th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Cleveland, Ohio, 2019
Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado, 2016
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Trade and colonization caused an unprecedented increase in Mediterranean human mobility in the fi... more Trade and colonization caused an unprecedented increase in Mediterranean human mobility in the first millennium BCE. Often seen as a dividing force, warfare is in fact another catalyst of culture contact. We provide insight into the demographic dynamics of ancient warfare by reporting genome-wide data from fifth-century soldiers who fought for the army of the Greek Sicilian colony of Himera, along with representatives of the civilian population, nearby indigenous settlements, and 96 present-day individuals from Italy and Greece. Unlike the rest of the sample, many soldiers had ancestral origens in northern Europe, the Steppe, and the Caucasus. Integrating genetic, archaeological, isotopic, and historical data, these results illustrate the significant role mercenaries played in ancient Greek armies and highlight how participation in war contributed to continental-scale human mobility in the Classical world.
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences
We report preliminary carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope evidence for diet and migration during... more We report preliminary carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope evidence for diet and migration during multiple periods in Albanian history, and compare isotopic evidence for diet to complementary evidence from oral pathology. The sites include two cities founded as Greek colonies: Epidamnus/Dyrrachion (modern-day Durrës) and Apollonia in Illyria. Skeletons date to the Archaic-Hellenistic periods (seventh–first centuries BC), Roman periods (first century BC to fourth century AD), Late Antiquity (fifth–seventh centuries AD), and the Medieval period (eighth–fourteenth centuries AD), a large time span which encompasses dramatic social and political changes and partial population replacements associated with colonization and warfare. Results from all periods show a diet based on C3, terrestrial foods. Despite no temporal trends, diet is most varied during Late Antiquity. Oral health of individuals interred within cities is worse than among individuals interred outside city walls, suggesting diet differences specifically linked to city life. Oral pathology variations are not mirrored in isotopic data, reflecting the fact that oral health is influenced not only by ingredients in the diet, but also by food processing techniques, hormones, oral hygiene, oral bacteria, and genetics. While two-thirds of the individuals from Epidamnus/Dyrrachion are estimated to have been born and raised elsewhere, none of the individuals from cemeteries outside Apollonia’s walls are, suggesting greater population movement associated with cities. This study joins other research showing stability in people’s diets across broad time scales, whether due to constraint, resilience, or resistance to change, and demonstrates a high level of migration to ancient Mediterranean cities.
PLOS ONE, 2021
Increased mobility and human interactions in the Mediterranean region during the eighth through f... more Increased mobility and human interactions in the Mediterranean region during the eighth through fifth centuries BCE resulted in heterogeneous communities held together by political and cultural affiliations, periodically engaged in military conflict. Ancient historians write of alliances that aided the Greek Sicilian colony Himera in victory against a Carthaginian army of hired foreign mercenaries in 480 BCE, and the demise of Himera when it fought Carthage again in 409 BCE, this time unaided. Archaeological human remains from the Battles of Himera provide unique opportunities to test early written history by geochemically assessing the geographic origens of ancient Greek fighting forces. We report strontium and oxygen isotope ratios of tooth enamel from 62 Greek soldiers to evaluate the historically-based hypothesis that a coalition of Greek allies saved Himera in 480 BCE, but not in 409 BCE. Among the burials of 480 BCE, approximately two-thirds of the individuals are non-local, w...
Every culture develops its own conceptualization of childhood. Therefore, the culture in which a ... more Every culture develops its own conceptualization of childhood. Therefore, the culture in which a child is indoctrinated may influence stress experienced during childhood. This study uses social age categories, defined by the ancient Greek’s cultural ideology of childhood based on cognitive development stages, to assess the prevalence of childhood stress indicators within individuals who died during childhood or adulthood in the Greek colony of Himera (648-409 B.C.). We assume this Sicilian colony followed the ancient Greek idea of childhood. We observed 739 individuals from the 6th-5th century BCE for three skeletal markers of childhood stress: cribra orbitalia (CO), porotic hyperostosis (PH), and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH). Individuals observable for at least one pathological lesion were assigned to the age-at-death categories of subadult (below age 18) and adult (age 18+) to examine whether individuals who died in childhood (subadults) exhibited a different prevalence for each stress marker than individuals who survived childhood (adults). The subadults were divided into five social age categories specific to ancient Greece: babyhood (birth-2), early preschool (3-5), real preschool (6-7), school (8-14 [puberty]), and adolescence (15-18). No significant differences between subadults and adults in the prevalence of any stress marker were observed (X2 pco=0.09; pph=0.72; and pleh=1.00). Adolescents exhibited significantly more PH and LEH than 3 of the 4 other stages of childhood. Perhaps experiencing early childhood stress led these individuals at Himera to develop a survival strategy that proved maladaptive to future environmental conditions, making these adolescents more susceptible to another stress event later in childhood. This research was funded by National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates award numbers 1560227 and 1560158, the University of Georgia, and the University of Northern Colorado.
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Papers by Britney Kyle (McIlvaine)