There is a growing body of bioarchaeological research on eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial Cape Town, a significant node in the transportation networks of both the Indian and Atlantic oceanic slave trades, attempting to shed light on the lives of enslaved persons. Here, a preliminary archaeological isotopic dietary baseline for the colonial Cape is presented. It is apparent from the data that cattle tended to graze far inland from Cape Town in an arid C₃-C₄ to purely C₄ biome. Sheep/goats grazed close to the settlement or some distance away in C₃ to C₃-C₄ biomes. A qualitative comparison of the baseline data to that of enslaved persons at The Cape suggests that this population did not consume large amounts of marine protein as has been concluded in the past. The archaeological baseline data was utilised, in combination with published modern data, to create a quantitative dietary reconstruction of a subset of this population using a Bayesian multi-source diet mixing model (FRUITS). The reconstruction confirms that the Cape’s enslaved did not consume much marine protein but relied predominantly on terrestrial C₃ plant protein.

在18世纪和19世纪殖民地的开普敦，生物考古学研究的机构正在不断发展，该镇是印度和大西洋海奴贸易的运输网络中的重要节点，试图阐明奴役者的生活。在这里，提出了殖民地开普敦的初步考古同位素饮食基线。从数据中可以明显看出，牛倾向于从干旱的C ₃ -C ₄到纯C ₄生物群落从开普敦内地吃草。在C ₃至C ₃ -C ₄附近靠近定居点或距离较远的地方放牧绵羊/山羊生物群落。对基线数据与开普敦被奴役者的基线数据进行定性比较，表明该人群没有像过去得出的结论那样消耗大量海洋蛋白。考古基线数据与已发布的现代数据相结合，使用贝叶斯多源饮食混合模型（FRUITS）创建了该种群一部分的定量饮食重建。重建工作证实，海角的奴隶并没有消耗太多的海洋蛋白，而是主要依靠陆地的C ₃植物蛋白。