The common burial practise during the Danish Bronze Age was cremation. Cremation of human bones leaves no organic material, i.e. collagen, for 14C dating. Until recently cremated bone was not considered a suitable material for radiocarbon dating, which has left us with a deficit of 14C dating for a whole cultural epoch. We have performed a blind test of the method introduced by Lanting et al [1] in 2001 for radiocarbon dating of cremated bones.
Theoretically the method assumes that during the high temperature of cremation the bone structural carbonate fraction recrystallises to larger and chemically more inert crystals making removal of adsorbed carbonate possible. Verifying that this recrystallisation has taken place is thus essential. We have tested infrared spectroscopy (IR) as a method to characterise the degree of cremation, in particular on a Late-Neolithic individual apparently caught in a fire and exhibiting the full spectrum from charred to fully “cremated” from one end of a single bone (left radius) to the other, reflected in a marked step in the IR parameters as well as in δ13C.
For the test we have dated 11 cremated or partly cremated prehistoric bones. One of these was tested against the dendro date of the associated oak coffin, 6 were tested against pitch used as sealing of the burial urns, while 4 burnt bones were tested against dates of associated charcoal. Five of these pairs were run as a blind test with the sample information withheld from the AMS Laboratory.
The agreement for the dendro and pitch pairs was excellent, whereas the charcoal comparisons seem to the be affected by old wood effect.
References 1. Lanting, J.N., A. Aerts-Bijma, and H. van der Plicht, Dating of Cremated Bones. Radiocarbon, 2001. 43(2): p. 1.
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See more of The 10th International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (September 5-10, 2005)