Exploring mobility in Italian Neolithic and Copper Age communities

As a means for investigating human mobility during late the Neolithic to the Copper Age in central and southern Italy, this study presents a novel dataset of enamel oxygen and carbon isotope values (δ¹⁸Oca and δ¹³Cca) from the carbonate fraction of biogenic apatite for one hundred and twenty-six individual teeth coming from two Neolithic and eight Copper Age communities. The measured δ¹⁸Oca values suggest a significant role of local sources in the water inputs to the body water, whereas δ¹³Cca values indicate food resources, principally based on C₃ plants. Both δ¹³Cca and δ¹⁸Oca ranges vary substantially when samples are broken down into local populations. Statistically defined thresholds, accounting for intra-site variability, allow the identification of only a few outliers in the eight Copper Age communities, suggesting that sedentary lifestyle rather than extensive mobility characterized the investigated populations. This seems to be also typical of the two studied Neolithic communities. Overall, this research shows that the investigated periods in peninsular Italy differed in mobility pattern from the following Bronze Age communities from more northern areas.