It has been a while, but we finally have a new post!
Read about our presence in the Fediverse: https://rchaeology.github.io/posts/2023/06/into-the-fediverse/
#rstats #fediverse #Rchaeology
Into the Fediverse
By now you have most likely heard of the Fediverse. Lately it has gained momentum due to the acquisition of Twitter and its subsequent demise, causing so-called ‘migrations’ to other platforms. Among them, Mastodon, one small part of the Fediverse.
If not, or you want to learn more, see below. The Rchaeology community now has a Mastodon account and a chat on Element/Matrix (Slack alternative). Both are hosted on archaeo.social. Both are open source!
We have a space on https://chat.archaeo.social/ to discuss #Rchaeology related topics. It's a private space but everyone is of course welcome.
To join, create an account (with the above link) and contact https://matrix.to/#/@bbartholdy:matrix.org
In this study, my co-authors (including @AmandaGHenry) and I tested a UHPLC-MS/MS method on archaeological dental calculus.
We were able to extract a bunch of alkaloids and link some of them to diet and disease in a rural Dutch population from the 19th century!
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7649151
#Rchaeology
Multiproxy analysis exploring patterns of diet and disease in dental calculus and skeletal remains from a 19th century Dutch population
## Abstract Dental calculus is an excellent source of information on the dietary patterns of past populations, including consumption of plant-based items. The detection of plant-derived residues such as alkaloids and their metabolites in dental calculus provides direct evidence of consumption by individuals within a population. We conducted a study on 41 individuals from Middenbeemster, a 19th century rural Dutch archaeological site. Skeletal and dental analysis was performed to explore potential relationships between pathological conditions/lesions and the presence of alkaloids. We also explored other factors potentially affecting the detection of alkaloids, including sample weight and skeletal preservation. Dental calculus was sampled and analysed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS). We were able to detect nicotine, cotinine, caffeine, theophylline, and salicylic acid. By detecting these compounds we are able to show the consumption of tea and coffee and smoking of tobacco on an individual scale, which is also confirmed by historic documentation and identification of pipe notches in the dentition. Nicotine and/or cotinine was present in 60% of individuals with at least one visible pipe notch. We find some influence of skeletal preservation on the detection of alkaloids and salicylic acid, with higher quantities of compounds extracted from well-preserved individuals, and also observe a relationship between weight of the calculus sample and raw quantity of the detected compounds, and we were able to detect alkaloids in samples as small as 2 mg. We found correlations between chronic maxillary sinusitis and the presence of multiple alkaloids.We show that there are many limitations that will need to be addressed going forward with this type of analysis, and stress the need for more systematic research on the consumption of alkaloid-containing items and their subsequent concentration and preservation in dental calculus, in addition to how mode of consumption may affect concentrations on different parts of the dentition. Despite the limitations, this preliminary study illustrates the many benefits of using calculus to target a variety of compounds that could have been ingested as medicine or diet, or consumed in a different manner. This method allows us to directly address specific individuals, which can be especially useful in individuals that are not always well-documented in historic documentation, such as rural populations, children and women.
#Introduction time!
We are a community of archaeologists who are anywhere from novice to avid #Rstats users!
We boost archaeological research using R for any part of the analysis (if it's open!), and occasionally post useful (and often useless) tips on using R.
We're also creating a list to help #Rchaeologists find each other.
https://github.com/rchaeology/Mastodon-Rchaeologists
https://rchaeology.github.io/
#Rchaeology #OpenScience #archaeology
GitHub - rchaeology/Mastodon-Rchaeologists: Most simple DIY webapp to bulk follow Rchaeologist accounts on Mastodon. Originally by David Adler, Thomas Haase & Hendrik Erz. Published as https://trutzig89182.github.io/Mastodon-Sociologists/.
Most simple DIY webapp to bulk follow Rchaeologist accounts on Mastodon. Originally by David Adler, Thomas Haase & Hendrik Erz. Published as https://trutzig89182.github.io/Mastodon-Sociologists...
It's been a while, but I can finally get back to working on using R for ground-penetrating radar data (using the RGPR package). It's been absolutely incredible so far and the developer is very happy to communicate features and fixes. My goal by Christmas is to wrap it in a Shiny app for ease of use.
https://emanuelhuber.github.io/RGPR/
#Rchaeology #Rchaeologists #RStats #Geophysics #RGPR #ShinyR
Home
RGPR: free and open-source
archaeo.social
archaeo.social is a Mastodon instance for archaeologists, ancient historians and anyone interested in scholarly communication about the human past. More: https://about.archaeo.social
An #introduction:
I'm a computational archaeologist at the University of Bern, where I'm working on https://xronos.ch, an open database of radiocarbon dates and other chronological data in #archaeology.
My research uses #datascience and computer modelling to understand the economy and #archaeoecology of the first farmers in prehistoric Southwest Asia.
I also maintain a few #Rstats packages (have we brought #Rchaeology to Mastodon yet?) at https://github.com/joeroe.
XRONOS
An open repository and curation platform for chronometric data from archaeological contexts worldwide.
Rchaeology Community
Bjørn Peare Bartholdy
Dr Scott Chaussée 
archaeo.social
Joe Roe