Our new study tests whether Mg/Ca ratios measured with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) can reveal when Indigenous communities in ancient Tampa Bay, Florida, harvested their oysters. Working with 20 archaeological eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) from shell mounds and middens in Bishop Harbor, we compared rapid LIBS elemental maps with traditional oxygen isotope (δ18O) analysis of the same shells.
Alexandria Marie Firenzi is a doctoral researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR; Reno, Nevada, USA). Her work focuses on reconstructing past sea-surface temperature and salinity variability along the northeastern Pacific coast of North America, with particular attention to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and coastal current dynamics within the Southern California Bight. She visited our lab and is keen to share some data!
Our new paper provides high-resolution data into the seasonality of prehistoric shellfish exploitation at the Haua Fteah (northern Cyrenaica, Libya). The research applies laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to analyse Mg/Ca ratios in Patella caerulea Linnaeus 1758 shells recovered from the Haua Fteah by past human populations.