Trace Element Contaminations in Excavated Bones by Microorganisms

Abstract

Post depositional changes of trace element concentrations in excavated human skeletons still remain an unsolved problem in the interpretation of the elemental composition of prehistoric bones. Several physical and chemical factors acting upon the bone mineral during interment are known and have already been subject to experimental approaches (Nelson & Sauer 1984; Lambert et al. 1985; Nelson et al. 1986). But microorganisms invading the corpse after death also play a major part in dead bone decomposition (Baud & Lacotte 1984; Piepenbrink 1986) in being capable for the total destruction of a bone’s microstructure by tunneling, even in macroscopically intact specimens (fig. 1). Biogenous decomposition can often be detected by histological methods only and is therefore sometimes overlooked.