OXYGEN-ISOTOPE COMPOSITION OF HUMAN TOOTH ENAMEL FROM MEDIEVAL GREENLAND - LINKING CLIMATE AND SOCIETY

Because the oxygen isotope composition of mammalian tooth enamel (delt a(18)O(p)) can be used as a proxy for local surface temperature, teeth from archaeological sites can serve as records of climate change on t he time scale of decades to thousands of years. Such records can be in terpreted in terms of the response of human societies to climate chang e. In the first such study, the analyses of Norse and Inuit teeth from North Atlantic sites validate the relation between delta(18)O(p) and temperature. A 3 parts per thousand decrease in delta(18)O(p) from sit es in Greenland about A.D. 1400 to 1700 implies rapid cooling during t he Little Ice Age.