Objective
The aim of this project is to assess the physical and chemical properties of bones that have various taphonomic histories, in order to be able to recognize these effects in fossil bone assemblages and thus there impact on the fossil record. This is to be carried out using a number of ' diagenetic parameters' that have been developed to measure key diagenetic changes in archaeological bone. These will be measured in a number of bone assemblages that
(a) have been created under controlled conditions in the laboratory or in field experiments
(b) that have undergone early diagenesis by exposure on the ground surface
(c) that have been excavated from ongoing archaeological excavations, and
(d) modern and fossil museum collections. The taphonomic histories of the above are either known or can be determined from the physical marks on the bones, and knowledge of the sites, and thus particular taphonomic events and processes (or combinations thereof) can be related to particular physico-chemical changes in the bone. Having established the effects of taphonomic factors on the physical and chemical properties of the bone, this information can then be used to interpret the formation of the fossil record at the sites investigated, and the further extrapolated to the wider fossil record. Particular attention will be paid to the taphonomy of collagen, as it is an important source of biochemical information, and is important to the overall structural integrity of the bone, and may be a good indicator of the survival of ancient DNA.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsDNA
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomolecules
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Topic(s)
Data not availableCall for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
RGI - Research grants (individual fellowships)Coordinator
28006 MADRID
Spain