BONE DEGRADATION, BURIAL MEDIUM AND SPECIES REPRESENTATION - DEBUNKING THE MYTHS, AN EXPERIMENT-BASED APPROACH

This paper investigates the process of diagenesis in mammal, bird and fish bone after burial of fresh and freshly cooked specimens in select ed soil types for 7 years. Almost all soft tissue had disappeared, but fur, feathers and hoof survived in acidic soil. Examination revealed that the rate of bone loss and modification could not be simply relate d to soil pH and/or inferred Eh; very different bone preservation occu rred in geographically adjacent soils of similar pH and drainage. Bone modification also varied greatly between animals of similar size, wit h bird bone appearing to be particularly resilient. The state of the r emains prior to burial was critically important. While boiling clearly accelerated diagenesis, other forms of cooking did not appear to have this effect. The role of micro-organisms in the degradation process i s addressed. It is suggested that routine methods of bone quantificati on may be inappropriate for such diagenetically altered assemblages. ( C) 1996 Academic Press Limited