Issue 5, 2014

High throughput screening of organic residues in archaeological potsherds using direct acidified methanol extraction

Abstract

Despite the significant achievements of organic residues analysis of archaeological pottery, the sometimes low lipid recovery and the need to process increasingly large collections of sherds to tackle important archaeological questions require the development of a more efficient and rapid extraction method. In this paper we present a novel methodology for the extraction of absorbed organic residues directly from crushed archaeological ceramic using acidified methanol (H2SO4–MeOH 2% v/v, 70 °C, 1 h). This new protocol was tested by: (i) verifying the recovery of organic residues from previously studied archaeological vessels from different geographical regions, exhibiting a range of different lipid distributions often found in archaeological pottery, and (ii) demonstrating enhanced recovery of organic residues from potsherds that did not yield appreciable lipids when using the widely applied chloroform–methanol extraction. The application of the direct acidified methanol extraction recovers higher concentrations of lipid residues together with simultaneous production of methyl esters of fatty acids, allowing extraction and methylation to be completed in 20% of the time compared to conventional solvent extraction and derivatisation for gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography combustion isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS).

Graphical abstract: High throughput screening of organic residues in archaeological potsherds using direct acidified methanol extraction

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Sept. 2013
Accepted
23 Dec. 2013
First published
02 Janv. 2014

Anal. Methods, 2014,6, 1330-1340

High throughput screening of organic residues in archaeological potsherds using direct acidified methanol extraction

M. Correa-Ascencio and R. P. Evershed, Anal. Methods, 2014, 6, 1330 DOI: 10.1039/C3AY41678J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements