古代食谱重建是目前国际考古学研究的热点之一。 随着研究的深入, 传统基于骨骼提取出骨胶原蛋白进行分析的方法逐渐凸显出一定的局限性。 尤其是在考察先民食物结构和营养等级等方面, 针对蛋白大分子获得的同位素信息, 无法排除一些内在或外在因素的影响, 因而常会引导我们做出错误的判断。 因此, 发展一种能进一步提高古代食谱研究准确率和分辨率的新方法, 是当前科技考古研究的迫切需求。 不同于大分子蛋白, 氨基酸能在更细微的层面提供有机体和生态环境中有机代谢过程中多方面的信息, 在生物考古领域内具有极大的应用潜力。 以北非突尼斯迦太基凡达里奇墓地出土的人和动物样品为例(遗址年代约在公元5世纪中期至6世纪早期), 进行基于骨胶原和单分子氨基酸的稳定同位素分析工作。 对10个人和4具动物考古样品提取骨胶原, 并进一步进行酸水解、 衍生化等操作, 通过气相色谱(GC)与同位素质谱(IRMS)串联技术, 开展特定化合物同位素分析。 研究结果揭示了该遗址先民的食谱特征, 以C₃类食物为主。 重点考察了该遗址先民饮食中的蛋白摄入情况, 结果表明该遗址先民饮食摄入有大量的动物蛋白, 且不同个体存在较大差异。 最后, 通过对骨胶原和氨基酸分析结果所得结论的比较, 证实基于单分子氨基酸的氮同位素分析对个体营养级位置的准确判断具有较大的优势。 研究结果为深入研究我国古代先民食物结构差异和人群分化等问题提供了新的思路和依据。 研究证实基于单分子氨基酸的同位素分析, 将是显著提高古代食谱重建分辨率的有力手段, 呼吁未来在我国考古材料中开展大量相关研究。

Palaeodiet is one of the most important topics in modern archaeological research. The bulk isotopic analysis of archaeological human and faunal remains have made great contributions in palaeodietary reconstruction for decades, but gradually it shows the limits of palaeodietary interpretation, of particular, in the way to detect the nutritional quality and food pattern of ancient human. Compound-specific amino acid composition method (CSIA) has shown huge potential to elucidating dietary behaviors in a complex archaeological context and may able to mitigate the influences of many of the limitations inherent to palaeodietary reconstructions. Here we carried out both bulk collagen isotope analysis and the compound-specific amino acid isotope analysis on 10 humans and 4 faunal skeletons which excavated from a Vandalic cemetery at Carthage in Tunisia, North Africa (5th—6th AD). The result reveals that the population from Vandal Cemetery had an overall dietary pattern that was predominately based on terrestrial C₃ resources, and the majority of the individuals having a significant amount of terrestrial protein in their diets. Further, this study focuses on determining the difference in the contribution of protein to the human diet and comparing the interpretation variance given by these two different methods. The individual amino acid isotope result shows the great advances in trophic position estimation for both archaeological human and animal’s samples. It may shed new light on the exploring identity dietary difference and the social stratification research in Chinese archaeological research. Our studies indicated that the CSIA has a huge potential for refining human paleodietary reconstruction, and should be widely applied into Chinese Archaeology.