What The Isotopes Cannot Prove

It is worth dwelling on the limits of what the isotope evidence actually establishes about Conquest Man’s origins, because the press coverage of such findings sometimes overclaims.

The oxygen isotope value in a tooth enamel does not tell you which country someone is from.

It tells you something about the climate conditions during the period when those teeth were forming, which relates to temperature, precipitation, and altitude, not to political boundaries.

A “cold climate” consistent with adolescence in a “cold region” includes northern England, Scotland, Scandinavia, northern Germany, the Baltic region, and other possibilities.