The Archaeological Park of Herculaneum in Pompei, Italy Ivan Romano/Getty Images
Baked human bones recovered from an ancient volcanic disaster still contain traces of their original proteins. The discovery could point the way to new forensic tools for analysing bodies recovered after fires or similar incidents.
In AD 79, the ancient Roman towns of聽Pompeii and Herculaneum in what is now Italy were聽entombed in hot ash when Mount Vesuvius,聽a nearby volcano,听别谤耻辫迟别诲.
The ash is thought to have been particularly hot at Herculaneum. Estimates suggest it聽 and killed some residents instantly, before vaporising their flesh in a matter of tens of minutes. The ash at Pompeii is thought to have been
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聽at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and his colleagues extracted small samples of bone from seven human skeletons recovered from Pompeii and five recovered from Herculaneum. They found that they could isolate traces of ancient protein from all of the samples.
鈥淭his is the first work aimed at the detection of [proteins] in people exposed to high temperatures,鈥 says Petrone.
Surprisingly, he says, bones from Herculaneum contained a greater diversity of proteins than those from Pompeii, even though they endured higher temperatures.
This may be because the bones at the two sites have experienced a different fate since the disaster. The volcanic ash at Herculaneum is thought to have remained waterlogged for most of the last 2000 years, which might have limited the breakdown of proteins in the bones by microbes. Fluctuations in the local water table mean the ash at Pompeii periodically dried out, says Petrone, probably allowing for more microbial-driven decomposition.
The fact that proteins in human bone can survive high temperatures could inspire further investigation, the researchers say. For instance, it may lead to research exploring which of the聽聽degrade at particular temperatures.
This could allow forensic scientists to establish the typical 鈥proteome鈥 of bone exposed to various temperatures, says Petrone. Forensic investigators could use such a dataset聽to estimate the temperature of a fire based on the recovered human remains.
For now, though, Petrone says the work shows there are still new discoveries to be made among the 鈥減riceless heritage of archaeological treasures鈥 at Herculaneum and Pompeii.
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