A fresh perspective on infrared spectroscopy as a prescreening method for molecular and stable isotopes analyses on ancient human bones

Following the development of modern genome sequencing technologies, the investigation of museumosteological finds is increasingly informative and popular. Viable protocols to help preserve thesecollections from exceedingly invasive analyses, would allow greater access to the specimens forscientific research. The main aim of this work is to survey skeletal tissues, specifically petrous bonesand roots of teeth, using infrared spectroscopy as a prescreening method to assess the bone qualityfor molecular analyses. This approach could overcome the major problem of identifying useful geneticmaterial in archaeological bone collections without resorting to demanding, time consuming andexpensive laboratory studies. A minimally invasive sampling of archaeological bones was developedand bone structural and compositional changes were examined, linking isotopic and genetic data toinfrared spectra. The predictive model based on Infrared parameters is effective in determining theoccurrence of ancient DNA (aDNA); however, the quality/quantity of aDNA cannot be determinedbecause of the influence of environmental and local factors experienced by the examined bones duringthe burial period