Heavy Metal Animals: A Preliminary Study of Anthropogenic Pollution in Animals from the Southern Carpathian Bronze Age

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the past archaeology rarely played a role in the discussion of anthropogenic pollution. This lack of study is mainly due to the skepticism around the accurate representation of heavy metals in archaeological material as a result of diagenetic processes. In this study, we present preliminary results of a systematic selection of animal second and third mandibular molar enamel from three Bronze Age sites with evidence of metallurgical production from the Southern Carpathian basin analyzed by ICP-MS and LA-ICP MS. The results showed different levels of heavy metals according to animal species and habitat, thus offering an opportunity to investigate questions of pollution in buried archaeological material. However, the analysis with LA-ICP-MS, while extremely useful, remains an expensive method. This research also shows that an effective sampling strategy and systematic sample preparation with ICP-MS can offer a much more affordable option to investigate questions about pollution.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35969.0