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Fundamentals of Bone Degradation Chemistry: Collagen is Not “The Way”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Richard Gillespie
Richard Gillespie*
Affiliation:
Department of Biogeography and Geomorphology Australian National University PO Box 4, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
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Abstract

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Collagen-based pretreatment methods for bone yield inconsistent results for those samples where protein preservation is low, as frequently found in bones from the semi-arid zones of Australia and North America. New methods for dealing with low collagen bones are needed, and this paper suggests that the non-collagenous proteins, particularly the blood proteins, may offer advantages for AMS dating because of their better preservation. Amino-acid profiles of collagen and non-collagenous proteins suggest that such differential preservation may be due to physico-chemical differences, and help to explain the poor results from dating low-collagen bones.

Type
I. Sample Preparation and Measurement Techniques
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 31 , Issue 3: June 20-25, 1988 Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia , 1989 , pp. 239 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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