Identification of Fragmented Bones and Their State of Preservation Using near Infrared Hyperspectral Image Analysis

Abstract

This preliminary work comprises examples where near infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging has been applied to identify animal bone material in complex sieved soil–sediment matrices from an archaeological excavation at a Stone Age site in northern Scandinavia. NIR hyperspectral image analysis has been performed, as a fast and non-destructive technique, on whole bone and tooth samples, as well as on soil from the excavation containing fragmented skeletal material in order to identify fragmented bones, to provide information about the skeletal material's chemistry–mineralogy within the site and the different layers as well as studying the possibility of describing their different state of preservation.