The first research objective of TIRECUA was to reconstruct the diet of the people that inhabited the Basin of Zacapu (BoZ) in the past, between the 2nd and the 15th century (c.). As some of the collections that were planned for the study were moved unexpectidly, the project opened to the colonial transition in the BoZ which slightly changed the considered chronology to the 7th – 17th c. The plan was to perform stable isotopes, proteomics and genomics to reconstruct diet. Yet, the project was conducted on a shorter duration than initially planned (17 months instead of 24 months) and therefore it focused on the stable isotopes analyses and on setting-up protocols for proteomics and genomics.
The overarching goal of TIRECUA was to integrate the data related to diet reconstruction and the population characterisation to better understand the patterns of innovation, resilience and continuity in food consumption in the BoZ.
TIRECUA also had several training objectives and transfer of knowledge objectives that were fulfilled: Developing cutting-edge skills and extending the fellow's competences in biomolecular anthropology, improving the fellow's teaching experience, expanding Host Institution expertise to new research areas and developing new analytical approaches at Host Institution.
Overall, TIRECUA has focused on the development of a protocol of combined biomolecular analysis from a single archaeological human tooth, made of (1) serial sampling of the dentine for stable isotopes, (2) palaeoproteomic sex identification from the enamel and (3) potential analysis of the dental calculus (ancient DNA, proteomics) if present on the tooth. Genomic data were already obtained from some of the teeth analysed here.
