Endurance in the Canyon: Assessing preservation at a multi-component site on the Southern High Plains, USA

Backhouse, Tara; Backhouse, Paul N.; Johnson, Eileen; Willett, Sarah

doi:10.1179/175355209x435542

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…By investigating the soil chemical properties and by relating them to bone histological analyses, collagen preservation and the palaeobotany at the site, questions of how organic preservation has changed during the last seven decades and what might have caused the changes are answered and discussed. The present study shall be viewed as a part of investigating the prerequisites for the future survival of our long-term archaeo-environmental archive of climatic and environmental changes and/or its relation to past human cultural interaction [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], in a time when reports of ongoing and accelerated destruction of this valuable record emerge from all over the world [1,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. settlements where section A, C and HC intersect one settlement and Ageröd I:B and I:D intersects two others [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying archaeo-organic degradation – A multiproxy approach to understand the accelerated deterioration of the ancient organic cultural heritage at the Swedish Mesolithic site Ageröd

Boëthius¹,

Hollund²,

Linderholm³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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Despite a growing body of evidence concerning accelerated organic degradation at archaeological sites, there have been few follow-up investigations to examine the status of the remaining archaeological materials in the ground. To address the question of archaeoorganic preservation, we revisited the Swedish, Mesolithic key-site Agerö d and could show that the bone material had been subjected to an accelerated deterioration during the last 75 years, which had destroyed the bones in the areas where they had previously been best preserved. To understand why this has happened and to quantify and qualify the extent of the organic degradation, we here analyse the soil chemistry, bone histology, collagen preservation and palaeobotany at the site. Our results show that the soil at Agerö d is losing, or has already lost, its preservative and buffering qualities, and that pH-values in the still wet areas of the site have dropped to levels where no bone preservation is possible. Our results suggest that this acidification process is enhanced by the release of sulphuric acid as pyrite in the bones oxidizes. While we are still able to find well-preserved palaeobotanical remains, they are also starting to corrode through reintroduced oxygen into the archaeological layers. While some areas of the site have been more protected through redeposited soil on top of the archaeological layers, all areas of Agerö d are rapidly deteriorating. Lastly, while it is still possible to perform molecular analyses on the best-preserved bones from the most protected areas, this opportunity will likely be lost within a few decades. In conclusion, we find that if we, as a society, wish to keep this valuable climatic, environmental and cultural archive, both at Agerö d and elsewhere, the time to act is now and if we wait we will soon be in a situation where this record will be irretrievably lost forever.

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