Centre d'Etudes Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Âge, UMR 6130, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, CNRS, Bât. 1; 250, rue Albert Einstein, F-06560 Valbonne, France.
Mass Spectrom Rev. 2011 Mar-Apr;30(2):177-220. doi: 10.1002/mas.20271. Epub 2010 Apr 5.
Mass spectrometry (MS) is an essential tool in the field of biomolecular archeology to characterize amorphous organic residues preserved in ancient ceramic vessels. Animal fats of various nature and origin, namely subcutaneous fats of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and also of dairy products, are those most commonly identified in organic residues in archeological pottery. Fats and oils of marine origin have also been revealed. Since the first applications of MS coupled with gas chromatography (GC) in archeology at the end of 1980s, several developments have occurred, including isotopic determinations by GC coupled to isotope ratio MS and identification of triacylglycerols (TAGs) structure by soft ionization techniques (ESI and APCI). The combination of these methods provides invaluable insights into the strategies of exploitation of animal products in prehistory. In this review, I focus on the analytical strategies based upon MS that allow elucidation of the structure of biomolecular constituents and determination of their isotopic values to identify the nature of animal fat components preserved in highly complex and degraded archeological matrices.
质谱（MS）是生物分子考古学领域的重要工具，用于鉴定保存在古代陶瓷容器中的无定形有机残留物。各种来源的动物脂肪，即牛、羊、山羊、猪、马的皮下脂肪，以及乳制品，是在考古陶器中的有机残留物中最常鉴定到的。还揭示了源自海洋的脂肪和油。自 20 世纪 80 年代末 MS 与气相色谱（GC）首次在考古学中的应用以来，已经发生了一些发展，包括通过与同位素质谱仪耦合的 GC 进行同位素测定，以及通过软电离技术（ESI 和 APCI）鉴定三酰基甘油（TAG）结构。这些方法的结合为史前时期动物产品利用策略提供了宝贵的见解。在这篇综述中，我专注于基于 MS 的分析策略，这些策略可以阐明生物分子成分的结构，并确定其同位素值，以鉴定在高度复杂和降解的考古基质中保存的动物脂肪成分的性质。
