RT Journal Article
T1 Eating in silence: isotopic approaches to nuns' diet at the convent of Santa Catalina de Siena (Belmonte, Spain) from the sixteenth to the twentieth century
A1 Sarkic, Natasa
A1 Herrerín López, Jesús
A1 López Costas, Olalla
A1 Grandal-d’Anglade, Aurora
K1 Isotopic analysis in collagen
K1 Paleodiet
K1 Paleopathology
K1 Modern period
K1 Female monastic population
K1 δ13C
K1 δ15N
AB Advances in geochemical and physical anthropological studies have provided new tools to reconstruct ancient lifestyles, especiallyof those minorities not commonly mentioned in historical texts. In comparison to males, little is known about everyday life in femalemonastic communities, and how it has changed over time. In this paper, we present a paleodietary (δ13C and δ15N in bone collagen)study of human (n = 58) and animal (n = 13) remains recovered from the former Convent of Santa Catalina de Siena in Belmonte(Cuenca, central Spain). Two funerary areas used by Dominican nuns were sampled: one dated to the sixteenth (n = 34) and theseventeenth (n = 15) centuries, and the other dated in the nineteenth and twentieth (n = 9) centuries. The isotopic values for sheep(n = 7) suggest the animals consumed at the convent came from diverse ecosystems or were raised under a range of managementstrategies. The human samples reflect a terrestrial diet, and those from the nineteenth to twentieth century, in some cases, reveal thepresence of C4 plants (millet, corn or sugar cane). Due to their religious practice, the consumption of terrestrial animal protein wasrestricted, and although they were allowed to eat fish, the isotopic signatures show little evidence of this. The individuals from thesixteenth and seventeenth century show a continuous shift in δ15N (9.7–12.7‰), with few significant differences in relation to theperiod, age, or pathologies (osteoporosis, periostitis, and brucellosis). The nineteenth- to twentieth-century samples can be divided intotwo groups: (a) one that fits the trend of previous centuries, albeit with a higher δ15N, possibly related to extensive access to animalprotein; and (b) a second group with elevated δ13C values (up to − 15.7‰). Different customs in the assumed homogeneous monasticlife are discussed as possible sources of isotopic variation, including access to luxury products such as animal protein or sugar, or thepractice of periods of food abstinence, which were especially popular with these communities, according to historical records.
PB Springer
SN 1866-9557
YR 2019
FD 2019
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21059
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21059
LA eng
NO Sarkic, N., López, J.H., López-Costas, O. et al. Eating in silence: isotopic approaches to nuns’ diet at the convent of Santa Catalina de Siena (Belmonte, Spain) from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 3895–3911 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0734-3
NO The isotopic study was carried out with funding from the CONSILIENCIA network (R2014/001; ED 431D2017/08) of the Consolidation and Structuring Programme of Research Units of the Xunta de Galicia, and a consolidating grant of the Xunta de Galicia for emerging research groups to the group CULXEO (GPC2015/024). OLC is funded by Plan Galego I2C mod.B (ED481D 2017/014)
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026