Abstract
SummaryMulti‐omics can informally be described as the combined use of high‐throughput techniques allowing the characterization of complete microbial communities by the sequencing/identification of total pools of biomolecules including DNA, proteins or metabolites. These techniques have allowed an unprecedented level of knowledge on complex microbial ecosystems, which is having key implications in land and marine ecology, industrial biotechnology or biomedicine. Multi‐omics have recently been applied to artistic or archaeological objects, with the goal of either contributing to shedding light on the original context of the pieces and/or to inform conservation approaches. In this minireview, we discuss the application of ‐omic techniques to the study of prehistoric artworks and ancient man‐made objects in three main technical blocks: metagenomics, proteomics and metabolomics. In particular, we will focus on how proteomics and metabolomics can provide paradigm‐breaking results by unambiguously identifying peptides associated with a given, palaeo‐cultural context; and we will discuss how metagenomics can be central for the identification of the microbial keyplayers on artworks surfaces, whose conservation can then be approached by a range of techniques, including using selected microorganisms as ‘probiotics’ because of their direct or indirect effect in the stabilization and preservation of valuable art objects.
Highlights
Archaeology is a discipline under constant evolution, in which numerous methodologies are typically combined in order to get more knowledge about past civilizations, including their lifestyles, their relationships with the environment, their traditions and their social organization
The same combination of techniques and procedures are applied with the purpose of preserving the cultural heritage, which is a great challenge for our own society
The choice of the technique or techniques to be applied in archaeological research depends on the goal of the study, which can focus on the chronological determination for some event in the past (David et al, 2013; Sauvet, 2015; Bonneau et al, 2017), identifying the identity of biological traces (Kamp et al, 1999; Kamp, 2001; Crown et al, 2009) or analyzing the composition of a particular object (Reiche et al, 2011; Brandt et al, 2014)
Summary
Several factors such as the type of material under study (i.e. rock art, man-made objects and hearths), the requirements of the technique (i.e. invasive vs non-invasive) and the versatility of the generated data strongly determine the experimental design and the methodology chosen for archaeological research. The application of proteomic, metabolomic and metagenomic techniques in archaeological research (especially in the study of ancient art and objects) is briefly reviewed.
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