Influence of Climate on Stable Nitrogen Isotopic Values of Contemporary Greek Samples: Implications for Isotopic Studies of Human Remains from Neolithic to Late Bronze Age Greece

In this paper, we study N-15 enrichment as an indicator not only of marine protein diet, but also of climate change. The slope of the variation of N-15 with precipitation was calculated equal to 0.38/100 mm of precipitation for Greek plants, 0.38/100 mm of precipitation for herbivores, and 0.32/100 mm of precipitation for the Greek human population (hair samples). As a case study, the slope was used to re-evaluate the published mean N-15 human bone collagen values from the Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age for 22 archaeological sites. The results indicate that climate has a significant impact on the final N-15 values of plant and animal tissues. Furthermore, for the same sites, we investigated the intra-site diet patterns, while taking into account the environmental effect on the observed N-15 human bone collagen values.