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When Dental Enamel is Put to the Acid Test: Pretreatment Effects and Radiocarbon Dating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2016

Rachel J A Hopkins ,
Christophe Snoeck  and
Thomas F G Higham
Rachel J A Hopkins*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Christophe Snoeck
Affiliation:
Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, ESSC-WE-VUB, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Thomas F G Higham
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: rachel.hopkins@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The influence of hydrochloric acid pretreatment on F14C and radiocarbon dates from dental enamel was investigated. Samples from modern equine incisors, a Roman cattle molar, and a Paleolithic woolly rhino molar were sampled and subsequently divided into five fractions. Each fraction was pretreated with a different acid solution, analyzed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dated at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). When compared to a control date (e.g. dentine collagen), better results were observed when increased concentrations of hydrochloric acid solution were used in the chemical pretreatment. This pilot study suggests that decontamination of younger samples may be possible. However, for more fossilized samples with a high level of contamination (e.g. from the European Paleolithic), acid pretreatment under the conditions used in this study does not remove all contamination.

Keywords

radiocarbon datingpretreatmentexperimentdiagenesis
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 893 - 904
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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