ZooMS Spectra for 21 Bone Samples from Old Bara, Oyo Empire

21 bone collagen samples from Old Bara, a royal suburb of the Oyo Empire (ca. 1600–1835), analyzed using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS). The dataset contains averaged MALDI-TOF spectra, supporting research into animal provisioning, diet, and residential mobility. It was authored by Moses Oluwaseyi Akogun and last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Identify animal species from archaeological bone fragments based on collagen peptide fingerprints.
• Investigate local animal resource management and breeding practices, such as horse breeding, in the Oyo Empire.
• Reconstruct dietary patterns and food provisioning networks for a royal metropolitan suburb.
• Assess residential mobility through isotopic analysis of bone collagen samples.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific, historically significant site from the Oyo Empire, ca. 1600–1835.
• Provides the first evidence for horse breeding in the Oyo Empire, a novel historical finding.
• Integrates multiple analytical methods (ZooMS, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, strontium isotopes) for a multiproxy approach.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Borealis Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) analysis of archaeological bone collagen.

Time Range

Samples from the Oyo Empire period, approximately 1600–1835.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-25 04:16:40; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Old Bara, a metropolitan suburb of the Oyo Empire in West Africa.