T02_03

ABOUT THE ISSUE OF RESTORATIONS AND POSSIBLE CONTAMINATIONS: A NEW RADIOCARBON-FRIENDLY PROTOCOL FOR THE PRESERVATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL BONES 

Barone S^1,2, Caramelli D⁵, Carretti E^3,4, Dei L^3,4, Fedi M¹, Lari M⁵, Liccioli L¹, Marradi G^3,4, Meoli A^3,4, Modi A⁵, Porpora F^3,4, Vai S⁵, Zaro V⁵

¹INFN - Sezione di Firenze, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy, ²Università degli Studi di Firenze, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy, ³Università degli Studi di Firenze, Department Of Chemistry "Ugo Schiff", Sesto Fiorentino (Fi), Italy, ⁴Università di Firenze, CSGI Consortium, Sesto Fiorentino (Fi), Italy, ⁵Università degli Studi di Firenze, Department of Biology, Firenze, Italy

In archaeological contexts, skeletal remains represent an important source of information: for instance, palaeogenetic analyses and radiocarbon dating allows us to study the evolution of ancient populations, their adaptation mechanisms, migratory flows and their lifestyle.

Archaeological skeletal remains can have lain in direct contact with the soil for a very long time. This situation may lead to diagenesis and the loss of important information for our studies. To prevent further degradation, since the half of the XX century, synthetic organic polymers have been widely used for the consolidation of bones. However, these polymers have so far shown to cause additional problems to the preservation of bones over time, due to the poor compatibility between the polymers themselves and the bone matrix and to possible loss of solubility of those materials. Such issues can also affect the possibility to date those restored samples by radiocarbon. 

In this work, we discuss the application of an innovative protocol for the consolidation of ancient bone remains not based on the use of organic substances but of nanometric HydroxyAPatite (HAP). The new consolidation method has been set-up through a multidisciplinary approach and tested to evaluate the possible effects on the palaeogenetic analysis and radiocarbon dating of the treated bones. We observed that HAP consolidation treatment does not introduce any contamination that could alter the results for both genetic characterization of the skeletal remains and radiocarbon dating. This consolidation procedure represents thus a more compatible conservation tool with respect to “old” procedures.