Investigation of chemical changes in bone material from South African fossil hominid deposits

Kuczumow, Andrzej; Cukrowska, Ewa; Stachniuk, Anna; Gawęda, R.; Mroczka, Robert; Paszkowicz, W.; Skrzypiec, Krzysztof; Falkenberg, R.; Backwell, Lucinda

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.09.020

Cited by 27 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Fibre temper was sometimes associated with calcium phosphate (apatite) and iron phosphate (vivianite) grains (TG C), which may have resulted from phosphatic mineralisation of plant fibres (Green 1979) in the temper, or the addition of crushed bone or fossil material (Kuczumow et al 2010;Piga et al 2009) to the clay fabric. Reef debris can consist of skeletal material (bioclasts) which can be found in beach sands as rounded or subrounded particles.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Temper Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Sarjeant¹

2014

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terra australis 42Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. Dewey Number: 666.09597 List of volumes in Terra AustralisCopyright of the text remains with the authors, 2014. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.Cover image courtesy of C. Sarjeant.Back cover map: Hollandia Nova. Thevenot 1663 by courtesy of the National Library of Australia. Reprinted with permission of the National Library of Australia. The excavations at An Sơn were funded by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council. My own research was funded by the Australian Postgraduate Award.The analysis of the ceramic fabrics was conducted with SEM-EDX at the Electron Microscopy Unit at The Australian National University, with guidance from Frank Brink. I would also like to thank Glenn Summerhayes for teaching me the benefits and methods of SEM and the electron microprobe.There are a number of people I would like to recognise for their support over the past few years. Charles Higham has always offered advice and provided useful information over the years, even after departing the University of Otago after my Master's. Nigel Chang initially invited me to Ban Non Wat eight years ago, and allowed me to visit again to review the more recent neolithic discoveries in 2009. Fiorella Rispoli and Roberto Ciarla shared their knowledge of the neolithic in central Vietnam, and Fiorella's wealth of knowledge on ceramics has always been a reference for me. Lâm Thị Mỹ Dung opened up the ceramic collections at the University of Hanoi to me in 2009, which offered some valuable comparative ideas for this monograph. Louise Cort and Joyce White organised a workshop on Southeast Asian ceramics in Washington, DC and Philadelphia in 2010; an event from which I gained much inspiration and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. I would also like to acknowledge those individuals from afar who were interested in my research -it helped to keep the inspiration going, so thanks to Andreas Reinecke, Nishimura Masanari, and those I met at conferences over these past few years.Closer to home, I would like to thank Anna Willis for her knowledge about mortuary ritual at An Sơn. I am also grateful for the new insights into southern Vietnamese archaeology after working alongside Philip Piper at Rạch Núi. Thanks to Judith Cameron who was so supp...

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Section: Discussion Of the Temper Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Sarjeant¹

2014

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“…Schleswig in Germany or Svendborg in Denmark [18]. The likely explanation is that the Al originates from adhered soil [50,[56][57][58] and that Fe is deposited on the bones by the passing groundwater and precipitated by changes in pH [50,[58][59][60]. It is therefore likely that Al and Fe represent two different diagenetic processes.…”

Section: Contamination and Diagenesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Convento di San Francesco a Folloni: the function of a Medieval Franciscan Friary seen through the burials

et al. 2015

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Background:The Franciscan Friary in Montella near Avellino in Southern Italy is of special interest because according to historical sources it was founded by St. Francis himself in AD 1221-1222. Human remains of several hundred individuals interred in the cloister walk have been unearthed during two excavation campaigns conducted in 2007-2008 and 2010. The environs of the friary have remained rural since the foundation preventing much modern contamination. The state of preservation of the skeletons is fair to good making a suite of analyses worthwhile. Results:The skeletons have been examined anthropologically and tissue samples have been subjected to radiocarbon dating, stable isotope measurements and trace element analyses by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and Cold Vapour Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. Conclusions:The radiocarbon dates are consistent with the historical sources and show that the cemetery in the cloister walk has been in uninterrupted use from the foundation of the friary in AD 1221-1222 and until the cemetery went out of use in AD 1524. The anthropological investigations show that the individuals interred at the friary would have been shorter than other Italians from the same time, and it seems that tuberculosis was more prevalent than leprosy. Isotopic measurements show a mixed agricultural and pastoral diet and none of the individuals were consuming marine protein. Based on the trace element analysis it seems that the people resided mainly at two distinct geographical areas, one of which was Montella. One individual stands out from the rest, because he was born and raised at some third geographical location distinct from Montella and because he sports the second oldest radiocarbon date of AD 1050-1249 (two sigma calibrated range). This date is consistent with the first generation of the founders of the friary-perhaps one of St. Francis' fellow travellers from Assisi.

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“…At some hydrological locations the groundwater carries large amounts of Fe and Mn [16][17][18], and the lay cemetery of Svendborg Franciscan Friary is such a place. The landscape rises steeply to the west of the friary, and the hillside running north-south here carries and releases a lot of groundwater.…”

Section: Diagenesismentioning

confidence: 99%

The distribution of mercury and other trace elements in the bones of two human individuals from medieval Denmark -- the chemical life history hypothesis

et al. 2013

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Excavating human skeletons is the closest archaeologists can get to the people who lived in the past. Once excavated the bones are often analysed chemically in order to yield as much information as possible. Most archaeometric analyses performed on samples of human skeletal remains have been performed on a single sample from a tooth or a long bone. In this paper we investigate how a suite of elements (Mg, Al, Ca, Mn, Fe, Zn, As, Sr, Ba, Hg and Pb) are distributed in two medieval skeletons excavated at the laymen cemetery at the Franciscan Friary in Svendborg, Denmark. The analyses have been performed using CV-AAS for Hg and ICP-MS for the rest of the elements. We find that in general Hg concentrations are highest in the trabecular tissues and in the abdomen region. Our data also show that the elements Al, Fe and Mn concentrate in the trabecular tissue and on the surfaces of the bones. The two individuals can be clearly distinguished by Principal Component Analysis of all the measured trace elements. Our data support a previously published hypothesis that the elemental ratios Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca and Mg/Ca are indicative of provenance. Aluminium, Fe and Mn can be attributed to various forms of diagenesis, while Hg is not present in sufficiently large amounts in the surrounding soil to allow diagenesis to explain the high Hg values in the trabecular tissue. Instead we propose that Hg must originate from decomposed soft tissue.

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Investigation of chemical changes in bone material from South African fossil hominid deposits

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Convento di San Francesco a Folloni: the function of a Medieval Franciscan Friary seen through the burials

The distribution of mercury and other trace elements in the bones of two human individuals from medieval Denmark -- the chemical life history hypothesis

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