'Impious easterners': can oxygen and strontium isotopes serve as indicators of provenance in early medieval European cemetery populations?

Abstract

Considerable debate persists concerning the origins of those involved in the adventus Saxonum: the arrival of Germanic peoples in Britain during the fifth century AD. This question was investigated using oxygen and strontium isotope ratios obtained from archaeological dental samples from individuals in the ¿Migration Period¿ cemetery, Ringlemere, Kent (n = 7) and three continental European sites (n = 17). Results demonstrated that strontium alone is unable to distinguish between individuals from south-eastern England and north-western Europe. Although 87Sr/86Sr values from Ringlemere fell within local biosphere parameters and suggest a spatially and temporally related group, ¿18O values were inconsistent with origins in eastern England or on the North German plain. Results from the European sites negate past climate change as an explanation. It is possible that culturally mediated behaviour has obscured geographical relationships. Further work to characterize water sources and human ¿18O values in the putative European homelands is required.