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A team of scientists has used ancient tooth enamel to deconstruct what a community in ancient Mesopotamia ate on a daily basis.
The residents of the third-millennium BCE site of Abu Tbeirah (in modern-day southern Iraq) ate primarily an omnivorous diet consisting of cereals and the flesh of terrestrial animals like pigs. They did not eat fish despite the site being very close to the head of the Persian Gulf.
The scientists used tooth enamel as collagen preservation is poor in arid environments like southern Mesopotamia.
“Reconstructing past lifeways and diets is essential to understanding the emergence of urban societies. However, in what are now arid environments like southern Mesopotamia, poor collagen preservation has long hampered direct isotopic analysis of trophic levels. This limitation has left key gaps in our understanding of subsistence in one of the world’s earliest urban heartlands,” they wrote.
“Here, we apply zinc isotope analysis to human and faunal dental enamel from the third-millennium BCE site of Abu Tbeirah (Iraq), integrating δ13C, δ18O, and trace element ratios (Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca). This multiproxy approach reveals an omnivorous diet based on C3 cereals, terrestrial animal products (likely including pigs), and limited freshwater resources, with no or little evidence of marine fish consumption, despite the site’s proximity to the ancient shoreline,” the paper added.
According to the authors, dietary patterns did not vary by sex, suggesting broad access to similar food sources within what was a non-elite population.
The isotopic variation in the fauna revealed flexible, low-intensity management practices. Pigs likely fed on household by-products while herbivores were managed in free-range systems. “This pattern reflects household-level provisioning rather than centralized or intensive management strategies,” stated the paper.
“Overall, these results support the idea that social status shaped diet and access to animal products at Abu Tbeirah, while also paving the way for broader application of zinc isotopes in arid and saline environments globally, where collagen preservation has historically limited bioarcheological research. The isotope data complement historical sources by identifying which species were most frequently consumed and showing that fish made, at most, a minor contribution to nonelites’ diets,” the paper read.
When collagen fails: Zinc isotopes unlock Sumerian lifeways in southern Mesopotamia has been published in the journal PNAS. The authors include Matteo Giaccari, Licia Romano, Silvia Soncin, Sofia Panella, Francesca Alhaique, Franco D’Agostino, Klervia Jaouen and Mary Anne Tafuri.