COMPARING ANALYSIS OF PRETREATMENT METHODS OF WOOD AND BONE MATERIALS FOR THE CHRONOLOGY OF PERIPHERAL BURIALS AT TUNNUG 1, TUVA REPUBLIC, RUSSIA

Fatima Pawełczyk,Irka Hajdas,Gino Caspari,Timur Sadykov,Jegor Blochin

doi:10.1017/rdc.2021.100

Abstract

ABSTRACTNine burials from Tunnug 1 site in Tuva Republic, which contained human and animal bones as well as remains of wood, were chosen for intercomparison study of preparation methods. Nine human bones, nine animal bones and 11 pieces of wood were prepared. Gelatin extracted from bones was purified using the UF method but the extraction from bones was modified with respect to acid and base treatment. Wood samples were treated as whole using acid-base-acid and cellulose was extracted for comparison. The results confirmed a highly consistent chronology of the sites centered at 200–400 CE, however, a few bones resulted in an offset between ages obtained by different methods. The extraction of cellulose was limited due to the poor preservation of wood. Our results highlight problems of dating poorly preserved bones and wood.

Highlights

Archaeologists often face choices when sampling archaeological materials for radiocarbon (14C) dating
A comparison of ages obtained for various materials and methods showed that wood was more difficult to prepare than the bones, and human bones provided more consistent results than the animal bones
The treatment with UF1 and UF2 resulted in coherent ages (2σ) for 9 human bones and 4 animal bones

Summary

Introduction

Archaeologists often face choices when sampling archaeological materials for radiocarbon (14C) dating. Wood, and bone are the most commonly analyzed material when dating archaeological contexts. Human bones when 14C dated are usually expected to date closely to the event of burial and provide an estimate for the usage of the archaeological site, provided no food reservoir age exists. 14C ages of bones must be evaluated carefully with respect to potential contamination and treatment efficiency. When buried in soil for centuries or millennia, bones are exposed to humic acids, a potential source of exogenous carbon. Other methods involve separation and dating of specific bone components such as peptides using a ninhydrin reaction with amino acids (Nelson 1991) or a chromatographic separation of hydroxyproline (McCullagh et al 2010; Marom et al 2012; Deviese et al 2018). Limited comparisons are often carried out as part of research projects (Fiedel et al 2013; Huels et al 2017; Kuzmin et al 2018; Quarta et al 2021)

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