Foamy Fermented and Fractionated - does Beer Consumption Create Confusion for Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Humans?

Oxygen isotope analysis can be a huge benefit to archaeological research, revealing the migration patterns of past peoples by determining their location of origin based on the food and drink that they consumed in childhood. However, the consumption of beer may have caused variation in ingested water and food isotope values.

In many medieval societies, a lack of access to clean drinking water led to the consumption of beer from a young age, so isotope values may have been affected by this, especially if the grains and water for the beer were sourced from far away. This would thereby provide a false indication of an individual's place of origin and potentially indicate a migrant background where there is none.