Combusted bone: Physical and chemical changes of bone during laboratory simulated heating under oxidising conditions and their relevance for the study of ancient fire use

Hoesel, Annelies van; Reidsma, Femke H.; Os, Bertil van; Megens, Luc; Braadbaart, Freek

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.102033

Cited by 26 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…When a bone is exposed to heat, both chemical and physical properties are altered [ 60 ]. Prior to obtaining our results we speculated that the heating process would influence the bacterial community within the bones during degradation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bone biodeterioration—The effect of marine and terrestrial depositional environments on early diagenesis and bone bacterial community

et al. 2020

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Bacteria play an important role in the degradation of bone material. However, much remains to be learnt about the structure of their communities in degrading bone, and how the depositional environment influences their diversity throughout the exposure period. We genetically profiled the bacterial community in an experimental series of pig bone fragments (femur and humeri) deposited at different well-defined environments in Denmark. The bacterial community in the bone fragments and surrounding depositional environment were studied over one year, and correlated with the bioerosion damage patterns observed microscopically in the bones. We observed that the bacterial communities within the bones were heavily influenced by the local microbial community, and that the general bone microbial diversity increases with time after exposure. We found the presence of several known collagenase producing bacterial groups, and also observed increases in the relative abundance of several of these in bones with tunneling. We anticipate that future analyses using shotgun metagenomics on this and similar datasets will be able to provide insights into mechanisms of microbiome driven bone degradation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bone biodeterioration—The effect of marine and terrestrial depositional environments on early diagenesis and bone bacterial community

et al. 2020

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“…To deal with these issues, new analytical methods have been developed (for two recent reviews, see refs. 23 and 24 ), with experimental studies testing the effects of heat on wood, bone, and various types of artifacts, as well as on sediments underlying fireplaces ( 25 – 27 ). As such methods have still not been widely applied, one could assume that earlier cases of fire use have gone undetected thus far.…”

Section: The Spatiotemporal Pattern Of Fire Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

MacDonald

Scherjon

Veen

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Control of fire is one of the most important technological innovations within the evolution of humankind. The archaeological signal of fire use becomes very visible from around 400,000 y ago onward. Interestingly, this occurs at a geologically similar time over major parts of the Old World, in Africa, as well as in western Eurasia, and in different subpopulations of the wider hominin metapopulation. We interpret this spatiotemporal pattern as the result of cultural diffusion, and as representing the earliest clear-cut case of widespread cultural change resulting from diffusion in human evolution. This fire-use pattern is followed slightly later by a similar spatiotemporal distribution of Levallois technology, at the beginning of the African Middle Stone Age and the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. These archaeological data, as well as studies of ancient genomes, lead us to hypothesize that at the latest by 400,000 y ago, hominin subpopulations encountered one another often enough and were sufficiently tolerant toward one another to transmit ideas and techniques over large regions within relatively short time periods. Furthermore, it is likely that the large-scale social networks necessary to transmit complicated skills were also in place. Most importantly, this suggests a form of cultural behavior significantly more similar to that of extant Homo sapiens than to our great ape relatives.

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“…the composition and structural properties of burnt bone. Observations on the nano-and micro-scale have therefore led to the definition of four stages of burning which are correlated to the transformation of bone mineral and removal of organics on the nano-and microscale: dehydration, decomposition, inversion, and fusion [2,[54][55][56][57]. These stages are accomplished at different temperature thresholds and were defined in oxidizing burning conditions [2,[54][55][56][57].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Observations on the nano-and micro-scale have therefore led to the definition of four stages of burning which are correlated to the transformation of bone mineral and removal of organics on the nano-and microscale: dehydration, decomposition, inversion, and fusion [2,[54][55][56][57]. These stages are accomplished at different temperature thresholds and were defined in oxidizing burning conditions [2,[54][55][56][57]. The rate and degree of temperature induced changes depend on variables such as flesh coverage, heating and cooling rates and oxygen availability [54,55].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of structural changes in modern and archaeological burnt bone: Implications for differential preservation bias

et al. 2021

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Structural and thermodynamic factors which may influence burnt bone survivorship in archaeological contexts have not been fully described. A highly controlled experimental reference collection of fresh, modern bone burned in temperature increments 100–1200˚C is presented here to document the changes to bone tissue relevant to preservation using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Specific parameters investigated here include the rate of organic loss, amount of bone mineral recrystallization, and average growth in bone mineral crystallite size. An archaeological faunal assemblage ca. 30,000 years ago from Tolbor-17 (Mongolia) is additionally considered to confirm visibility of changes seen in the modern reference sample and to relate structural changes to commonly used zooarchaeological scales of burning intensity. The timing of our results indicates that the loss of organic components in both modern and archaeological bone burnt to temperatures up to 700˚C are not accompanied by growth changes in the average crystallite size of bone mineral bioapatite, leaving the small and reactive bioapatite crystals of charred and carbonized bone exposed to diagenetic agents in depositional contexts. For bones burnt to temperatures of 700˚C and above, two major increases in average crystallite size are noted which effectively decrease the available surface area of bone mineral crystals, decreasing reactivity and offering greater thermodynamic stability despite the mechanical fragility of calcined bone. We discuss the archaeological implications of these observations within the context of Tolbor-17 and the challenges of identifying anthropogenic fire.

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Combusted bone: Physical and chemical changes of bone during laboratory simulated heating under oxidising conditions and their relevance for the study of ancient fire use

Cited by 26 publications

References 38 publications

Bone biodeterioration—The effect of marine and terrestrial depositional environments on early diagenesis and bone bacterial community

Bone biodeterioration—The effect of marine and terrestrial depositional environments on early diagenesis and bone bacterial community

Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

Characterization of structural changes in modern and archaeological burnt bone: Implications for differential preservation bias

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