Refining Chronologies by new Radiocarbon Dating Methods: Towards Molecular Isotope Archaeology (F05)

• Subject Area: Physical Geography
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 57444011

Understanding human evolution can be considerably improved when studying the isotopic composition of ancient bones providing valuable age and dietary information relevant to all CRC projects. However, bone collagen employed in age and dietary studies is often contaminated due to various geo-chemical processes. While standard protocols in collagen extraction do not sufficiently solve this problem, the application of a newly developed collagen purification method (isolation of individual amino acids) is able to circumvent such contaminations, ultimately providing more reliable results than previous methods. Additionally, the F5 project will continue performing AMS 14C analysis for all CRC projects.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 806: Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary
• Applicant Institution: Universität zu Köln
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Tibor J. Dunai, until 6/2017; Dr. Stephanie Kusch; Professorin Dr. Janet Rethemeyer