Burned and buried: A vibrational spectroscopy analysis of burial‐related diagenetic changes of heat‐altered human bones

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: 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. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 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). RESULTS: 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. DISCUSSION: 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.

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