Chemical abundances are presented for 19 elements in a sample of 63 red giants in the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy ( dSph ) , based on homogeneous 1D/LTE model atmosphere analyses of our own observations ( 32 stars ) and data available in the literature ( a further 31 independent stars ) .
The ( Fe ) metallicity and [ \alpha /Fe ] distribution functions have mean values and dispersions of –1.59 and 0.33 dex ( [ Fe/H ] range : –2.68 to –0.64 ) , and 0.07 and 0.13 dex ( [ \alpha /Fe ] range : –0.27 to 0.25 ) , respectively .
We confirm the finding of Venn et al .
( 110 ) that a small percentage ( some 10 % in the present investigation ) of the sample show clear evidence for significant enrichment by Type Ia supernovae ejecta .
Calcium , with the most accurately determined abundance of the \alpha -elements , shows an asymmetric distribution towards smaller values of [ Ca/Fe ] at all [ Fe/H ] , most significantly over –2.0 < [ Fe/H ] < –1.0 , suggestive of incomplete mixing of the ejecta of Type Ia SNe with the ambient medium of each of Carina ’ s generations .
Approximate color-magnitude-diagram age estimates are presented for the sample and , together with our chemical abundances , compared with the results of our previous synthetic CMD analysis , which reported the details of Carina ’ s four well-defined populations .

We searched for the Na-O anti-correlation universally reported in the Galaxy ’ s globular clusters , and confirm that this phenomenon does not exist in Carina .
We also found that one of the 32 stars in our sample has an extremely enhanced lithium abundance – A ( Li ) _ { NLTE } = +3.36 , consistent with membership of the \sim 1 % group of Li-rich stars in dSph described by Kirby et al .
( 44 ) .