Isotope Analyses of Hair as a Trace Evidence Tool to Reconstruct Human Movements: Combining Strontium Isotope with Hydrogen/Oxygen Isotope Data

This project will explore the investigative use of hair analysis as a method for determining an individuals travel histories and region-of-origin. The project will involve the analysis of strontium isotope ratios of (a) 200+ in-house archived hair samples previously collected from throughout the United States and originating from regions with different soil strontium isotope ratio values and (b) new intra-city collections needed to differentiate exongenous from endogenous strontium contributions. The proposed hair 87Sr/86Sr model/map will be combined with previously developed hair hydrogen and oxygen isotope models/maps to create a multi-proxy and high fidelity geo-location tool of forensic relevance. ca/ncf