During the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, Spanish ships sailed around the globe connecting Spain to its colonies. While documentary records offer rich details concerning life on board ship, archaeological information is essential to generating a full picture of the past. The cemetery at Old St Bernard’s Hospital, Gibraltar, provides an opportunity to study the skeletal remains of sailors. Following previous osteological research, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium isotope analyses were undertaken on thirty-three of these individuals. The results show that the, largely male, individuals had various different diets during life and came from several different places. Diets were largely based on C₃ food chains; some individuals consumed C₃ foods with low δ¹³C values; others consumed some marine foods, and a few individuals had a high trophic level diet, through the consumption of either freshwater resources or a high proportion of animal protein. The individuals spent their childhoods in several different places, although these homelands do not correlate simply with dietary variation. This variety in diets and homelands is consistent with our expectations for this hospital site given its location in a post-mediaeval entrepôt. The interpretation of these results are greatly helped by the available historical information and this has broader implications for the interpretation of isotope data elsewhere where the historical context of the site and the mobility patterns of the individuals are less well known.

在16至18世纪，西班牙船只在全球范围内航行，将西班牙与殖民地连接起来。尽管文献记录提供了有关船上生活的丰富细节，但考古信息对于生成完整的过去至关重要。直布罗陀老圣伯纳德医院的墓地为研究水手的骨骼遗骸提供了机会。在先前的骨科学研究之后，对其中的33个人进行了碳，氮，氧和锶同位素分析。结果表明，大部分为男性的人一生中有不同的饮食习惯，并且来自几个不同的地方。饮食主要基于C ₃食物链。有些人消耗ç _3倍的食物与低δ ¹³C值；其他人则食用一些海洋食品，而少数人则通过消耗淡水资源或高比例的动物蛋白而饮食营养丰富。个人的童年生活在几个不同的地方，尽管这些家园并不仅仅与饮食差异相关。饮食和家园的多样性与我们对这家医院所在地的期望相符，因为它位于中世纪后的企业中心。这些结果的解释在很大程度上得益于可用的历史信息，这对于在其他地方不太了解该地点的历史背景和个人迁移方式的地方对同位素数据的解释具有更广泛的意义。