KOSTER Lucy

Miss Lucy Koster completed her MSc at the University of Oxford in September 2021. Her thesis ‘Deep-rooted divides? Social inequality and life history at Zvejnieki’, completed under the supervision of Professor Rick Schulting, used stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of sequential dentine from the Mesolithic and Neolithic hunter-gather-fisher cemetery of Zvejnieki in Latvia to reconstruct breastfeeding and weaning practices (BWP), and early childhood provisioning. Combined with previous research on BWP at the site completed by Henderson et al. (2022, J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep), this has shown potential links between the presence of animal tooth pendants and grave goods with diet and childhood provisioning, which may be linked to vertical and horizontal social stratification. This study provides a comparison site for the research being undertaken at Baikal.

Lucy is now undertaking a PhD at the University of Aberdeen, titled ‘Investigating migration, kinship and mobility in prehistoric Scotland using ancient DNA and stable isotopes’, under the supervision of Dr Linus Girdland Flink, Professor Kate Britton, Mr Neil Curtis, and Dr Pontus Skoglund. The aim of this research is to combine stable isotopic (δ13C, δ15N, δ34S, 87Sr/86Sr, and δ18O) and aDNA data to reconstruct life histories of individuals. This research will also focus on theoretical approaches to combining different forms and scales of information, as well as critically appraising the use of terms such as ‘local’ and ‘non-local’ in the interpretation of biomolecular data.

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Bioarchaeology, Life history reconstruction, Stable isotopic analysis, Mobility studies, aDNA, Theoretical approaches