A strontium and oxygen isotope perspective on the Globular Culture Amphora mobility in central and eastern Poland

This study investigates isotopic indications of human mobility in the Late Neolithic Globular Amphora Culture (GAC). The core area of the GAC is the Polish Lowland, where it spread widely in all directions in the late 4 th and first half of the 3 rd millennia BCE. At present, the distribution of archaeological sites is most often interpreted as an indication of two different, but complementary forms of mobility in the GAC: short-range and long-range. This hypothesis is currently being tested through the application of bioarchaeological, mainly isotopic, data. This article examines the mobility patterns in two distant Polish regions. Seven skeletons from a collective burial in Nakonowo, Kujawy (central Poland), and five inhumations from four graves in the Chelm area, Lublin region (eastern Poland), were obtained for strontium and oxygen isotope analysis. Strontium isotope ratios from human dental enamel in the Nakonowo grave show very limited variation (0.7125-0.7129, n=7), whereas 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios determined in dental enamel from the Chelm area are considerably more varied (0.7095 to 0.7131, n=5). The δ 18 O values from enamel carbonate are not very variable, i.e., -4.2 + 0.6 (n=7) and -5.7 + 0.5 (n=5), respectively. The data may either signify geographical and geological uniformity vs. heterogeneity, or increased mobility outside the GAC core area.