Why Wooden Artifacts of Historical and Cultural Importance Remain Well Preserved for Millennia in Waterlogged Buried Environments: Microscopy Provides a Clue

Abstract

Prehistoric and man-made ancient wooden artifacts are continually being uncovered from anoxic waterlogged burial environments where they are protected from highly destructive oxygen-dependent wood-degrading fungi. Microscopy has played a crucial role in understanding why such valuable buried objects remain well preserved for millennia. Suitable microscopy techniques have revealed that under anoxic burial conditions, wood is attacked mainly by erosion bacteria, which are well adapted to functioning in such environments, but the speed of wood degradation is extremely slow, in most cases resulting only in surface deterioration even after thousands of years of burial of wooden objects. The information emerging from microscopy studies is also proving crucial in more precise targeting of technology development to adequately conserve/restore the excavated precious wooden artifacts for human benefit.