Human encroachment, climate change and the loss of our archaeological organic cultural heritage: Accelerated bone deterioration at Agerod, a revisited Scandinavian Mesolithic key-site in despair.

ABSTRACT: Ancient organic remains are essential for the reconstruction of past human lifeways and environments but are only preserved under particular conditions. Recent findings indicate that such conditions are becoming rarer and that archaeological sites with previously good preservation, are deteriorating. To investigate this, we returned to the well-known Swedish Mesolithic site Ageröd I. Here we present the result of the re-excavation and the osteological analyses of the bone remains from the 1940s, 1970s and 2019 excavation campaigns of the site, to document and quantify changes in bone preservation and relate them to variations in soil conditions and on-site topography. The results indicate that the bone material has suffered from accelerated deterioration during the last 75 years. This has

SUBMITTER: Boethius A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7390309 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature