The noble diets in Kourla Manor according to bone collagen δ13C and ẟ15N analyses – a comparative study between samples from four Finnish archaeological sites

The private chapel of the Kourla estate in Vihti, Finland, belonged to the noble family of Toll, who around the turn of the 19th century used it for burials. We were documented and identified as well as sampled the remains of nine remarkably well-preserved individuals buried there for δ¹³C and ẟ¹⁵N analyses of bone collagen to explore their diets. The results indicated that their average diets must have contained large amounts of protein from high trophic positions in terrestrial or brackish and freshwater environments. Comparison with the corresponding values of three archaeological collections from Finland, 17th-18th-century Helsinki and Oulu, and turn-of-the-19th-century Rauma, implied some distinctions. The ẟ¹⁵N values of the nobility from Kourla were the highest.