Patterns of diagenesis in bone I: The effects of site environments

We have measured a suite of "diagenetic parameters" for several populations of archaeological bones buried in a number of northwest European sites sin ce the last Ice Age. These are: the structural damage due to microbes; chan ges in bone micro-and macro-porosity; protein content; a measure of the cry stallinity of hydroxyapatite as reflected in the phosphate infra-red spectr um peak splitting; and a measure of the carbonate content as given by the r atio of carbonate to phosphate infra-red absorption peaks. The results prov ide a database that clearly characterises the patterns, which are often sit e-dependent, of diagenetic change in buried bone. Our main conclusions are that individual site hydrology appears to have a strong influence on the ou tcome of bone preservation and that porosity is the most effective single d iagenetic parameter which both determines and reflects the preservation of bone in the burial environment. Copyright 2000 Academic Press