Recent Studies

The same grinding curve approach was applied to the study of enamel and bone materials from vertebrates. Surprisingly, the enamel samples from 4 different taxa can all be well separated from each other and that this separation corresponds in part to varying amounts of carbonate in the lattice. The bone materials are not as well separated, but they too do not totally overlap (Fig 3). For more details see (Asscher et al., 2011b).

Figure 3. Grinding curves for various modern biogenic carbonate hydroxyapatites showing hoe enamel samples from different taxa have different atomic disorder signatures.

3.As biogenic minerals and minerals formed at high temperatures, such as calcitic ash and plaster, are relatively disordered at the atomic level, then they are likely to become more ordered over time in the burial environment. This dissolution and reprecipitation process will either alter or completely eliminate any original signal embedded in the crystal. Thus if crystals can be identified with their original atomic disorder signal still intact, they can be assumed to be very well preserved. This novel approach to evaluating the diagenesis of plasters has been used by (Poduska et al., 2012) and for bones (Fig. 4)(Asscher et al., 2011a).

Figure : Grinding curves of equid dentine from different sites. Ateret, by historical references is dated to 1099 CE, Qesem cave site, dated to 400,000-200,000 years ago, Neve-Yarak site is dated to 8,000 years ago. Figure is from (Asscher et al., 2011a).

References Cited

Asscher, Y., Regev, L., Weiner, S., Boaretto, E., 2011a. Atomic disorder in fossil tooth and bone mineral: an FTIR study using the grinding curve method. ArcheoSciences revue d’archéométrie 13, 135-142.

Asscher, Y., Weiner, S., Boaretto, E., 2011b. Variations in atomic disorder in biogenic carbonate hydroxyapatite using the infrared spectrum grinding curve method. . Adv. Functional Mat. 21, 3308-3313.

Poduska, K.M., Regev, L., Berna, F., Mintz, E., Milevski, I., Khalaily, H., Weiner, S., Boaretto, E., 2012. Plaster characterization at the PPNB site of Yiftahel (Israel) including the use of  14C: implications for plaster production, preservation and dating. . Radiocarbon In press.

Poduska, K.M., Regev, L., Boaretto, E., Addadi, L., Weiner, S., Kronik, L., Curtarolo, S., 2010. Decoupling local disorder and optical effects in infrared spectra: differentiating between calcites with different origins. Adv. Mater. 23, 550-554.
Regev, L., Poduska, K.M., Addadi, L., Weiner, S., Boaretto, E., 2010. Distinguishing between calcites formed by different mechanisms using infrared spectrometry: archaeological applications J. Archaeol. Sci. 37, 3022-3029.

Weiner, S., 2010. Microarchaeology. Beyond the Visible Archaeological Record. . Cambridge University Press, New York.