Abstract
Animal dung is increasingly a valuable resource for reconstructing ancient activity in archaeology. One of the most common archaeological indicators of dung in caves and arid environments are calcitic dung spherulites that form in the digestive system of a variety of animals. Although many aspects of their formation and taphonomy are understood, details of their mineralogy remain poorly-defined. Using the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) grinding curve method, we report here that archaeological sediments containing large amounts of dung spherulites can be differentiated from sediments composed of other forms of geogenic and pyrogenic calcites. We propose that this attribute can be used to rapidly identify well-preserved degraded dung deposits at archaeological sites with routine laboratory or on-site field FTIR analysis. This observation at a 5000-year-old open air site suggests that the grinding curve method also has potential to be used for assessing preservation of dung spherulites for future radiocarbon or stable isotope investigations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 118-124 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science |
| Volume | 97 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Funding
This work was supported by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF; Grant no. I-1244-107.4/2014) to R.S.-G. and Markus Fuchs (Justus-Liebig-University Gieβen) as principle investigators and Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv University) as co-investigator, and internal funds available at the Laboratory for Sedimentary Archaeology, The Leon H. Charney School of Marines Science, University of Haifa. In addition, Z.C.D. was supported by the Dan David Scholarship for Archaeology and the Natural Sciences (2017-2018). We thank all the volunteers that participated in the excavation of Nahal Boqer 66 in 2013 and 2016, and Guy Bar-Oz and Yotam Tepper for the modern dung sample from Wadi Zeitan. Special thanks to Lior Regev, David Friesem and Yotam Asscher for training and guidance on FTIR and the grinding curve method in the early stages of Z.C.D.’s research. Thanks also to Don Butler for insightful discussion on spherulites and the methods described here. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped us improve the manuscript. This work was supported by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF; Grant no. I-1244-107.4/2014 ) to R.S.-G. and Markus Fuchs (Justus-Liebig-University Gieβen) as principle investigators and Israel Finkelstein ( Tel Aviv University ) as co-investigator, and internal funds available at the Laboratory for Sedimentary Archaeology, The Leon H. Charney School of Marines Science, University of Haifa . In addition, Z.C.D. was supported by the Dan David Scholarship for Archaeology and the Natural Sciences (2017-2018). We thank all the volunteers that participated in the excavation of Nahal Boqer 66 in 2013 and 2016, and Guy Bar-Oz and Yotam Tepper for the modern dung sample from Wadi Zeitan. Special thanks to Lior Regev, David Friesem and Yotam Asscher for training and guidance on FTIR and the grinding curve method in the early stages of Z.C.D.’s research. Thanks also to Don Butler for insightful discussion on spherulites and the methods described here. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped us improve the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development | I-1244-107.4/2014 |
| Tel Aviv University | |
| University of Haifa |
Keywords
- Dung spherulites
- FTIR
- Grinding curve