Preservation and conservation concepts from the transdisciplinary perspective of Taphonomy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Contemporary Taphonomy aims not only to study the analysis of the degradation of biological remains and their transformation into deposits from the past (Palaeontology and Archaeology) but also, together with other disciplines, such as Forensic sciences and Ecology, the study of depositional and postdepositional events concerning the degradation of biological remains in the present. Due to these interactions, Taphonomy has reached a new status as a transdisciplinary area that supports the interpretation of degradation processes in a broad sense, which would be applicable in the immediate future to other areas such as Material sciences or Medicine. However, such a wide and complex research panorama requires an agreement on common terminology. This is crucial in relation with the use of the concepts preservation and conservation, which are widely used in many scientific areas and represent nowadays a dilemma incorporated into Taphonomy. Using the Scopus database and network software analysis tools, we have explored the relationships between concepts and disciplines implicated in the taphonomic analysis. Our results show that both terms have acquired different nuances over time in each scientific discipline implicated in the study of degradation and, depending on the circumstances and language, are sometimes used as synonymous or even misused.