ORIGINAL PAPER Human skeletal development and feeding behavior: the impact on oxygen isotopes Noreen Tuross 1 & Linda M. Reynard 1 & Elizabeth Harvey 1,2 & Alfredo Coppa 3 & Michael McCormick 4 Received: 5 April 2016 /Accepted: 7 March 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract There is substantial room for isotopic analysis to address questions regarding human migration and interaction with the landscape. Oxygen isotopes in vertebrate tissues, which are generally thought to reflect water source, are de- rived from a combination of water, food and air isotopic values put through the physiology and intermediary metabo- lism of the animal. We highlight two additional issues in ap- plying oxygen isotopic analysis to humans: the unique devel- opmental regime of skeletal elements and the impact of cooking on food. Keywords Oxygen isotopes . Bone . Teeth . Enamel . Development . Cooking Introduction: three isotopic sources of δ 18 O For archaeological applications, the oxygen isotopic compo- sition of skeletal remains can be measured in the carbonate or phosphate derived from hydroxyapatite in enamel, dentin or bone and from the collagen in bone or dentin. The choice of analysis often comes down to the ease of use and familiarity with the technology and/or the samples that are available for analysis. In this paper, oxygen isotopes associated with the carbonate fraction of apatite will be indicated as δ 18 O carb ; apatite phosphate oxygen isotopes as δ 18 O phos , and oxygen isotopes in collagen as δ 18 O collagen. The goal of the research utilizing oxygen isotope measure- ments in bones or teeth is usually comprised of some combi- nation of questions regarding water sources, seasonality or migration. For mammals, each oxygen isotope source (δ 18 O carb , δ 18 O phos and δ 18 O collagen ) reflects some of the body water composition in the mineral or protein. Body water in turn reflects the drinking water of the animal as a series of elegant experiments has shown (Longinelli 1984; Luz et al. 1984; Luz and Kolodny 1985). More recently, Kirsanow and Tuross (2011) demonstrated that the drinking water oxygen isotopic composition was also reflected in the collagen of rats. In a study of monotonously fed rats raised on food of nearly identical oxygen isotopic composition and different water δ 18 O, the drinking water isotopic difference was reflected equally well by δ 18 O carb and δ 18 O collagen , while a slightly greater discrimination was observed in δ 18 O phos (Kirsanow and Tuross 2011). In addition, the cyclical seasonal pattern of oxygen isotopes in meteoric water sources was reflected in oscillating δ 18 O values in caprid dentinal collagen (Kirsanow et al. 2008). Crowley (2014) measured δ 18 O carb vs δ 18 O phos in bone of recent New World monkeys from Costa Rica and found stable offsets in these oxygen isotopic sources in bone. When moving from modern tissue samples to archaeological/ paleontological skeletal remain, there is the additional issue of postmortem change. Substantial disagreement over the use of δ 18 O carb in subfossil bone (see Koch et al. 1997; Wang and Cerling 1994; Kohn and Cerling 2002) has evolved toward an acceptance of δ 18 O carb in enamel as a substance that retains in vivo values. Recently, δ 18 O phos measurements have increased * Noreen Tuross tuross@fas.harvard.edu 1 Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 2 Present address: UK Medical Center, MN, 150, Lexington, KY 40536-0298, USA 3 Department of Environmental Biology, University of Rome La Sapienza, I-00185 Rome, Italy 4 Department of History, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Archaeol Anthropol Sci DOI 10.1007/s12520-017-0486-5