T02_P13

A short note on temperature influence of the acid step in bone sample preparation

Lindauer S¹,  Friedrich R¹

¹Curt-Engelhorn-Centre Archaeometry, Mannheim, Germany

Several sample preparation protocols are known which deal with the trial to extract as much collagen of a bone sample in reliable quality as possible. In addition, care must be taken to conserve the isotope ratio if further investigations such as stable isotopes are planned. Often these protocols are compared by modifying several parameters at once so that the real effects of the different components cannot be compared very well. We concentrated our test on the temperature influence of the first acid step. This step serves to demineralize the sample. We compare sample preparation at room temperature with two acid strength concentrations and at 4°C with the same acid concentrations. Our results imply that the acid concentration is not the key influence on the collagen yield, but the temperature is.