Abstract
The impacts of diagenesis on archaeological and palaeontological bone complicate investigations of in-vivo chemical and isotopic characteristics. Such bone is often pre-treated in an attempt to remove diagenetic alteration prior to trace element or isotopic analyses, although very few standardized approaches exist for evaluating pre-treatment effectiveness. In this pilot study, we characterize the diagenetic alteration and assess the impact of acetic acid chemical pre-treatment on the trace element and structural characteristics of four bones from Belgium, including an Early Medieval cremated bone from Broechem and three representative ‘old’ bones of different ages (ca. 40–130 ka) from the Late Pleistocene sedimentary sequence of Scladina Cave. Each bone was analyzed before and after acetic acid pre-treatment using the ‘Perio-spot’ technique and ‘Perios-endos’ profiles. We measured trace element concentrations with laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (μXRF). Structural characteristics were investigated with Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Our results indicate that chemical pre-treatment had little to no significant impact on the trace element content of the Early Medieval cremated bone, had the most impact on the youngest bone from Scladina Cave, and had less impact on the trace element content of two older bones from Scladina Cave. This suggests that the effectiveness of acetic acid chemical pre-treatment is greater for bones undergoing early diagenetic processes, has minimal impact on highly crystalline cremated bone, and may preferentially leach in-vivo signatures from bones undergoing later diagenesis. The weights of leachates removed from each bone also correspond well with their hypothetical diagenetic states, indicating that researchers could potentially assess the diagenetic state of bones by weighing the leachates produced during acetic acid pre-treatment. Therefore, our new approach may provide a valuable step toward effectively and consistently differentiating among in- and ex-vivo trace element signatures, and, by proxy, those of their isotopes, in archaeological and palaeontological bone.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 330-344 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology |
| Volume | 530 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Sept 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:RM is grateful for the NSERC CGSD Program, the UBC 4YF Program, and the NSERC CREATE Multidisciplinary Applied Geochemistry Network (MAGNET) for financial support. Funding for this research was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant to Dr. Dominique Weis. CS thanks the FWO for the short research stay grant that enabled him to carry out this research in Vancouver and his post-doctoral fellowship. PC thanks the VUB Strategic Research, VUB Sabbatical Funds, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS). NdW is financed by a personal PhD fellowship from IWT Flanders (IWT700). We are also very thankful for the support of the PCIGR staff for their involvement in the project, especially the assistance of Dr. Maghaleray Amini. We thank Agenschap Onroerend erfgoed, Vlaanderen, Belgium, for access to the cremated bone sample from Broechem, and Dominique Bonjean, Director of Scladina Cave Archaeological Research Centre, as well as Stéphane Pirson, Kevin DiModica, and Gregory Abrams for access and valuable help in collecting the Scladina Cave bone samples. We would also like to thank Dr. Jamie Cutts, Mollie McDowell, Dr. Anaïs Fourny, Nicole Williamson, and Dr. Laura Bilenker for valuable feedback on the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
Funding
RM is grateful for the NSERC CGSD Program, the UBC 4YF Program, and the NSERC CREATE Multidisciplinary Applied Geochemistry Network (MAGNET) for financial support. Funding for this research was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant to Dr. Dominique Weis. CS thanks the FWO for the short research stay grant that enabled him to carry out this research in Vancouver and his post-doctoral fellowship. PC thanks the VUB Strategic Research, VUB Sabbatical Funds, and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS). NdW is financed by a personal PhD fellowship from IWT Flanders (IWT700). We are also very thankful for the support of the PCIGR staff for their involvement in the project, especially the assistance of Dr. Maghaleray Amini. We thank Agenschap Onroerend erfgoed, Vlaanderen, Belgium, for access to the cremated bone sample from Broechem, and Dominique Bonjean, Director of Scladina Cave Archaeological Research Centre, as well as Stéphane Pirson, Kevin DiModica, and Gregory Abrams for access and valuable help in collecting the Scladina Cave bone samples. We would also like to thank Dr. Jamie Cutts, Mollie McDowell, Dr. Anaïs Fourny, Nicole Williamson, and Dr. Laura Bilenker for valuable feedback on the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Vrije Universiteit Brussel | |
| Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | |
| University of British Columbia | |
| Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies | |
| Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie | IWT700 |
Keywords
- Diagenesis
- Pre-treatment
- Structural characteristics
- Trace elements
- ‘Perio-spot’ technique
- ‘Perios-endos’ profiles