Regensburg 2000 – scientific programme

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SYBP: Biologie und Physik

SYBP 3: POSTER

SYBP 3.7: Poster

Thursday, March 30, 2000, 15:00–18:00, D

Investigation of ancient human bone with ionoluminescence and PIXE¹ — •Daniel Spemann, Steffen Jankuhn, Jürgen Vogt, and Tilman Butz — Universität Leipzig, Abt. NFP, Linnéstr. 5, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

The ionoluminescence (IL) method can provide information about the chemical form of elements (speciation), which cannot be obtained by other ion beam analytical methods (e.g. PIGE, PIXE, RBS) [1]. It also allows the detection of Mn and Rare Earth Elements in host minerals like apatite with a minimum detection limit of a few µg/g. For these reasons an IL detection system was installed at the 2 MV van de Graaff accelerator at Leipzig. We briefly describe the present system.

We studied the ionoluminescence of ancient human bones in order to get more information about diagenetic alterations of bone mineral [2]. With increasing distance from the periosteal edge of the bone, a change of the luminescence from orange to blue was found. The orange-red luminescence is most likely activated by Mn²⁺ ions incorporated into the bone mineral due to the ion exchange process Ca²⁺←→ Mn²⁺, which occurred during the time that the bone was buried in the soil.
¹Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Innovationskolleg INK 24 B1/1 (Germany).
[1]  K.G.Malmqvist et al. Nucl. Instr. Meth. B 109/110, 227 (1996).
[2]  St.Jankuhn et al. Nucl. Instr. Meth. B 136–138, 329 (1998).