0000000000185606
AUTHOR
Agustin Diez
Chemical Element Levels as a Methodological Tool in Forensic Science
The aim of the present study was to define a methodological strategy for understanding how post- mortem degradation in bones caused by the environment affects different skeletal parts and for selecting better preserved bone samples, employing rare earth elements (REEs) analysis and multivariate statistics. To test our methodological proposal the samples selected belong to adult and young individuals and were obtained from the Late Roman Necropolis of c/Virgen de la Misericordia located in Valencia city centre (Comunidad Valenciana, Spain). Therefore, a method for the determination of major elements, trace elements and REEs in bone remains has been developed employing Inductively-Coupled Pla…
Anthropogenic units fingerprinted by REE in archaeological stratigraphy: Mas d'Is (Spain) case
Abstract On occasions, archaeologists have to deal with serious difficulties to differentiate between processes that ultimately are responsible for the formation of stratigraphic units. Sometimes we face problems related with depositional units in multilayered deposits and other times, we ask for the character of some dark surface soils, very similar to natural paleosols and usually associated with archaeological findings. In both cases, the problems we must address concern the relative impact of human activities. The imbalance between anthropic and natural processes in the formation of archaeological deposits is crucial for a correct interpretation of the processes involved in the formatio…
Biological mineral content in Iberian skeletal cremains for control of diagenetic factors employing multivariate statistics
Abstract The aim of this study was to define a strategy for a correct selection of bone samples by employing inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) for reconstructing the biological mineral content in bones through the determination of major elements, trace elements and Rare Earth Elements (REE, lanthanides) in skeletal cremains of ancient Iberians (III–II B.C), discovered in the Necropolis of Corral de Saus (Moixent, Valencia) between 1972 and 1979. The biological mineral content was determined taking into account diagenetic factors. A control method for a better reading of results was applied. To explore large geochemical datasets and to reduce the number of va…
Lanthanides Revealing Anthropogenic Impact within a Stratigraphic Sequence
Difficulties to differentiate between anthropogenic and natural processes in the formation of archaeological deposits are crucial for a correct interpretation not only of the actions involved in the development of archaeological sites, but also of their occupation-abandonment dynamics and the understanding of their spatial behaviors and relationship with the environment. We have carried out lanthanides (rare earth elements “REE”) analysis to distinguish anthropogenic from natural stratigraphic units in sediments using the advantage of the high sensibility, precision, and accuracy of ICP-MS measurements. In the Neolithic site of Mas d’Is (Alacant, Spain), we have applied REE analysis in a hu…