THE ELEMENTAL STATUS OF ANCIENT HUMAN BONES FROM EDESHEIM/RHEINLAND–PFALZ DETERMINED BY PIXE
Abstract
We report on ion beam investigations of 40 bone samples from the archaeological site Edesheim/Rheinland–Pfalz, Germany, a burial site of a Merowingian population (6–8th century AD).
The samples were prepared as pellets from the so–called WARD'S triangle. This region is an inner part of the femoral neck and one of the areas of high fracture risk in the case of osteoporosis. The experiments were carried out with an 1.5 MeV H+ beam at the 2 MV VAN DE GRAAFF accelerator of the University of Leipzig. Simultaneously to the PIXE measurements, PBS and PIGE spectra were recorded.
We will present a correlation matrix for 11 selected elements detected by PIXE, which exhibits trends and dependences from which preliminary information on various diagenetic processes can be derived.
