Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Department of Life Sciences, Center for Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra, Calçada Martim de Freitas, Coimbra, Portugal.
Am J Biol Anthropol. 2023 Mar;180(3):534-547. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24691. Epub 2023 Jan 13.
The analysis of burned human remains can be very challenging due to heat-induced alterations. Occasionally, human bones present these coupled with diagenetic changes, offering even more of a challenge, since there is a lack of studies regarding interactions between both taphonomic phenomena. With this study, we aimed to assess and document the effects of inhumation on the chemical composition of both unburned and burned human skeletal remains.
We buried, for 5 years, four groups of human bone samples comprising unburned bones and bones experimentally burned at 500, 900, and 1050 °C. Periodic exhumations were carried out to collect bone samples to be analyzed through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance mode, in order to calculate four chemical indexes: (1) crystallinity index (CI); (2) type B carbonates to phosphate index (BPI); (3) total carbonates (A + B) to carbonate B ratio (C/C); and (4) OH to phosphate ratio (OH/P).
After inhumation, CI and C/C of unburned bones and bones burned at 500 °C, and BPI of bones burned at 1050 °C did not vary significantly. However, the remaining indexes showed both relevant increments and reductions throughout observations, depending on burning temperature and index.
Our results suggest that diagenesis can have an effect in bone's molecular composition. However, these effects do not seem to significantly affect the conclusions that can be taken from the analysis of infrared bone spectra, at least in the case of inhumations with a duration of 5 years or less.
由于热诱导的改变，分析烧伤人类遗骸可能极具挑战性。偶尔，人类骨骼会出现这种情况，再加上成岩变化，这就更具挑战性了，因为缺乏关于这两种埋藏学现象相互作用的研究。本研究旨在评估和记录埋葬对未燃烧和燃烧人类骨骼遗骸化学组成的影响。
我们将四组人类骨骼样本（包括未燃烧的骨骼和在 500、900 和 1050°C 下实验性燃烧的骨骼）进行埋葬，时间为 5 年。定期挖掘以收集要通过衰减全反射模式的傅里叶变换红外光谱进行分析的骨骼样本，以计算四个化学指标：（1）结晶度指数（CI）；（2）B 型碳酸盐与磷酸盐指数（BPI）；（3）总碳酸盐（A+B）与碳酸盐 B 的比值（C/C）；（4）OH 与磷酸盐的比值（OH/P）。
埋葬后，未燃烧的骨骼和在 500°C 下燃烧的骨骼的 CI 和 C/C 以及在 1050°C 下燃烧的骨骼的 BPI 没有明显变化。然而，其余指标在观察过程中都表现出了相应的增加和减少，这取决于燃烧温度和指标。
我们的结果表明，成岩作用会对骨骼的分子组成产生影响。然而，这些影响似乎不会对从红外骨骼光谱分析中得出的结论产生重大影响，至少在埋葬时间为 5 年或更短的情况下是这样。
