Analysis of collagen preservation in bones recovered in archaeological contexts using NIR Hyperspectral Imaging.
The scope of this article is to propose an innovative method based on Near Infrared Hyperspectral Chemical Imaging (NIR-HCI) to rapidly and non-destructively evaluate the relative degree of collagen preservation in bones recovered from archaeological contexts. This preliminary study has allowed the evaluation of the potential of the method using bone samples from the Early Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods at the site of Trou Al'Wesse in Belgium. NIR-HCI, combined with chemometric tools, has identified specific spectral bands characteristic of collagen. A chemometric model has been built using Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) to identify bones with and without collagen. This enables the evaluation of the degree of collagen preservation and homogeneity in bones within and between different strata, which has direct implications for archaeological applications (e.g., taphonomic analyses, assemblage integrity) and sample selection for subsequent analyses requiring collagen. Two archaeological applications are presented: comparison between sub-layers in an Early Upper Palaeolithic unit, and evaluation of the range of variability in collagen preservation within a single Holocene stratum.
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department, Henseval׳ Building, Chaussée de Namur, 24, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium.
Damien
D
Vincke
University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, Place du XX Août, Bâtiment A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
Rebecca
R
Miller
University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, Place du XX Août, Bâtiment A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
Édith
É
Stassart
University of Liège, Service of Prehistory, 7, Place du XX Août, Bâtiment A1, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
Marcel
M
Otte
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department, Henseval׳ Building, Chaussée de Namur, 24, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium.
Pierre
P
Dardenne
University of York, Department of Archaeology, Wentworth Way, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
Matthew
M
Collins
University of Winchester, Department of Archaeology, Winchester SO22 4NR, United Kingdom.
Keith
K
Wilkinson
Bournemouth University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, United Kingdom.
John
J
Stewart
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department, Henseval׳ Building, Chaussée de Namur, 24, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium.
Vincent
V
Baeten
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Valorisation of Agricultural Products Department, Henseval׳ Building, Chaussée de Namur, 24, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium. Electronic address: fernandez@cra.wallonie.be.
Juan Antonio
JA
Fernández Pierna
D001106:Archaeology / Q000379:methods*; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry*; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared
D003094:Collagen
Bone; Collagen; Near Infrared (NIR) Hyperspectral Imaging; Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA); Principal Component Analysis (PCA); Sorting