A preliminary comparative study of immunological, DNA and microscopic techniques for the species identification of archaeological cremated bone

Determining the species of origin of cremated fragments of bone and of bone artifacts may be difficult even with modem DNA and protein analysis; the question arises as to whether morphological and metric analyses of the histological structure of burnt bone and artifacts may in some cases be a valid alternative to biomolecular techniques. We conducted a comparative study between histological, immunological and DNA techniques on degraded and cremated bone samples from Grotta Cappuccini (Neolithic site near Lecce), Pescarzo (Iron Age site near Bergamo), Arsago Seprio and Sesto Calende (prehistiric Golasecca culture site) and bone artifacts from funerary beds found at the Roman site of S. Lorenzo, Cremona. Adequate positive and negative controls had previously been tested. Samples were extracted and tested in order to verify the specific osteon pattern and metrics (with NIH imaging software), survival of the serum protein albumin (by ELISA), and survival of region V of human mitochondrial DNA (by PCR). We also performed a comparative histological study between burnt and non-burnt bone from different species. Results show how in all cases the histological structure was able to indicate (with different ranges of error according to the species) the species of origin, whereas both protein and DNA analysis gave negative results, suggesting that older histological techniques, accompanied by new metric and statistical analyses, may still be of some use in determining the species origin of burnt fragments of bone.