Bone, archaeological

Whatever its previous history before disposal and deposition at a site, the alteration of bone buried or exposed to the elements is determined, mainly, by the combined effect of the physical, chemical, and biological conditions at the site where it is deposited these include the seasonal characteristics, average temperature, relative humidity, amount and flow motion of water, pH value, extent of aeration, and the nature of the microorganism population (Millard 2001 White and Hannus 1983). 

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Quantifying Histological and Chemical Preservation in Archaeological Bone... 

In the following description and discussion of our results, various criteria derived from the literature are used to determine whether or not each sample is of adequate preservation to allow it to be confidently included in a stable isotope study. The values applied in the various criteria have been found to be associated with archaeological bone collagen that retained an isotopic composition that was reflective of its diet, while the majority of samples that had values outside of the criteria did not retain an isotopic composition that reflected diet. The values for these criteria may vary slightly depending upon the collagen extraction methodology used, and such criteria are not exact. In this study samples that fall within the criteria values are deemed acceptable, and those that do not are deemed unacceptable. ... 

In addition, our results suggest that removal of hpids improves both yield characteristics and elemental characteristics. Recent work by Liden et al. (1995) suggests that the methanol-chloroform method used here is more effective than other methods, such as treatment with NaOH solution, or the maintenance of an acidic environment and ultrafiltration of products during collagen extraction. It is speculated that the presence of hpids in archaeological bone samples may interfere with the acid hydrolysis of protein during... 

Child, A.M. 1995 Towards an understanding of the microbial decomposition of archaeological bone in the burial environment. Journal of Archaeological Science 22 165-174. 

Pfeiffer, S. 1989 Characterization of archaeological bone decomposition in a sample of known length of interment. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 78 283. 

Child, A.M. (1995). Microbial taphonomy of archaeological bone. Studies in Conservation, Vol.40, pp.19-30. 

Bones and teeth, however, are primary archaeological materials and are common to many archaeological sites. Bones bearing cut marks from stone tools are a clear proxy for human occupation of a site, and in the study of human evolution, hominid remains provide the primary archive material. Hence, many attempts have been made to directly date bones and teeth using the U-series method. Unlike calcite, however, bones and teeth are open systems. Living bone, for example, contains a few parts per billion (ppb) of Uranium, but archaeological bone may contain 1-100 parts per million (ppm) of Uranium, taken up from the burial environment. Implicit in the calculation of a date from °Th/U or Pa/ U is a model for this Uranium uptake, and the reliability of a U-series date is dependent on the validity of this uptake model. 

Belshaw NS, Pike AWG, Henderson GM (2002) U-series dating of archaeological bone material by laser ablation mnltiple-ion-counter ICP-MS. Poster presented at Golschmidt 2002 conference. 18th-25th Angnst 2002, Davos, Swtizerland... 

Pike AWG (2000) U-series dating of Archaeological Bone using TIMS. PhD dissertation. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK... 

Millard, A. R. (1993), Diagenesis of Archaeological Bone The Case of Uranium Uptake, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, UK. 

O Connell T. C., R. E. M. Hedges, and G. J. van Klinken (1997), An improved method for measuring racemization of amino acids from archaeological bone collagen, Ancient Biomolec. 1, 215-220. 

O Connor, T. P., K. Starling, K. Watkinson, and D. Watkinson (eds.) (1987), Archaeological Bone, Antler and Ivory, UK Institute for Conservation, London. 

Figure 14.10 GC profiles of total lipid extracts of archaeological bones showing the wide spread survival of lipids, in particular cholesterol and its derivatives...

Amino Acids in Archaeological Bones and Those of Experimental Animals... 

Stott, A. W. and Evershed, R. P. (1996) 813C analysis of cholesterol preserved in archaeological bones and teeth. Analytical Chemistry 68, 4402 4408. 

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