Diversity aboard a Tudor warship: investigating the origins of the Mary Rose crew using multi-isotope analysis

Scorrer, Jessica, Faillace, Katie, Hildred, Alexzandra, Nederbragt, Alexandra, Andersen, Morten ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3130-9794, Millet, Marc-Alban ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2710-5374, Lamb, Angela and Madgwick, Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4396-3566 2021. Diversity aboard a Tudor warship: investigating the origins of the Mary Rose crew using multi-isotope analysis. Royal Society Open Science 8 (5) , 202106. 10.1098/rsos.202106

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Abstract

The great Tudor warship, the Mary Rose, which sank tragically in the Solent in 1545 AD, presents a rare archaeological opportunity to research individuals for whom the precise timing and nature of death are known. A long-standing question surrounds the composition of the Tudor navy and whether the crew were largely British or had more diverse origins. This study takes a multi-isotope approach, combining strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (δ18O), sulfur (δ34S), carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analysis of dental samples to reconstruct the childhood diet and origins of eight of the Mary Rose crew. Forensic ancestry estimation was also employed on a subsample. Provenancing isotope data tentatively suggests as many as three of the crew may have originated from warmer, more southerly climates than Britain. Five have isotope values indicative of childhoods spent in western Britain, one of which had cranial morphology suggestive of African ancestry. The general trend of relatively high δ15N and low δ13C values suggests a broadly comparable diet to contemporaneous British and European communities. This multi-isotope approach and the nature of the archaeological context has allowed the reconstruction of the biographies of eight Tudor individuals to a higher resolution than is usually possible.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology
Additional Information:	Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Royal Society, The
ISSN:	2054-5703
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 May 2021
Date of Acceptance:	8 April 2021
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2023 02:59
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/140931

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