10.5281/zenodo.2604324
https://zenodo.org/records/2604324
oai:zenodo.org:2604324
Esther Plomp
Esther Plomp
0000-0003-3625-1357
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Isabella von Holstein
Isabella von Holstein
0000-0002-2538-8457
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Laura Font
Laura Font
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Janne Koornneef
Janne Koornneef
0000-0003-4090-8315
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Gareth Davies
Gareth Davies
0000-0002-6136-9202
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
A new tool to human provenancing? Neodymium in a forensic and archaeological context.
Zenodo
2016
Neodymium
Isotope
143Nd/144Nd
Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometry
Forensic
Archaeology
Human
provenance
dentine
enamel
tooth
TIMS
2016-09-08
eng
Poster
10.1016/j.scijus.2019.02.001
10.1039/C7JA00312A
10.4121/uuid:d541a402-2701-47b2-ac6a-eaaa14c8c111
10.5281/zenodo.2604323
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
The addition of another isotope system to the human provenance repertoire can potentially provide us with more specific information on the region of origin of a person, as well as address some of the limitations that are currently still related to the now commonly used isotopic techniques: oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), strontium (Sr) and lead (Pb). This study reports on the viability of using neodymium isotopes (143Nd/144Nd) as a possible tool to track the origins of humans. Nd is a light rare earth element (REE), which is, in contrast to what the name suggests, widely distributed in the Earth’s crust. Due to the isotopic variations in the crust Nd isotopes have previously been successfully applied to identify the production centres of glass archaeological artefacts (Ganio et al. 2013). The tendency of the human body to filter out non-essential elements means that REE concentrations are very low in human teeth (Nd <0.1 ppm), making previous Nd isotope analysis of human tissue impossible. Due to recent developments in mass spectrometry the analysis of Nd has become achievable and results can be used to complement information derived from other isotope systems. We report the optimisation of chromatographic methods to separate Nd from bio-apatite. Sub-nanogram amounts of Nd were analysed using a latest generation thermal ionization mass spectrometer (TRITON-Plus) equipped with 1013 Ω resistors at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Koornneef et al. 2014; 2015). This study presents the neodymium results of third molars from modern Dutch residents. These results will then be compared to O, Sr and Pb data, demonstrating the possibilities for Nd as a new forensic and an archaeological human provenancing tool.
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
319209
NEXUS 1492. New World Encounters in a Globalising World.