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Exploring the utility of geometric morphometrics to analyse prehistoric hand stencils

Publication . Fernández Navarro, V.; Godinho, Ricardo Miguel; García Martínez, D.; Garate Maidagan, D.

Hand stencils are a remarkable graphic expression in Prehistoric rock art, dating back to 42 ka BP. Although these stencils provide direct impressions of the artists' hands, the characterization of their biological profile (i.e., biological sex and age) is very challenging. Previous studies have attempted this analysis with traditional morphometrics (TM), whereas little research has been undertaken using Geometric Morphometrics (GM), a method widely used in other disciplines but only tentatively employed in rock art studies. However, the large variation in relative finger position in archaeological hands poses the question of whether these representations can be examined through GM, or, in contrast, if this creates an unmanageable error in the results. To address this issue, a 2D hand scans sample of 70 living individuals (F = 35; M = 35) has been collected in three standardized positions (n = 210) and digitized with 32 2D conventional landmarks. Results show that the intra-individual distance (mean Procrustes distance between Pos. 1-2 = 0.132; 2-3 = 0.191; 1-3 = 0.292) is larger than the inter-individual distance (mean in 1 = 0.122; 2 = 0.142; 3 = 0.165). Finally, it has been demonstrated that the relative finger positions, as well as the inclusion of all hand parts in the analysis, have an overshadowing effect on other variables potentially involved in the morphometric variability of the hand, such as biological sex.

2024Journal article

Open Access

Comparing extraction method efficiency for high-throughput palaeoproteomic bone species identification

Publication . Mylopotamitaki, Dorothea; Harking, Florian S.; Taurozzi, Alberto J.; Fagernäs, Zandra; Godinho, Ricardo Miguel; Smith, Geoff M.; Weiss, Marcel; Schüler, Tim; McPherron, Shannon P.; Meller, Harald; Cascalheira, João; Bicho, Nuno; Olsen, Jesper V.; Hublin, Jean-Jacques; Welker, Frido

High-throughput proteomic analysis of archaeological skeletal remains provides information about past fauna community compositions and species dispersals in time and space. Archaeological skeletal remains are a finite resource, however, and therefore it becomes relevant to optimize methods of skeletal proteome extraction. Ancient proteins in bone specimens can be highly degraded and consequently, extraction methods for well-preserved or modern bone might be unsuitable for the processing of highly degraded skeletal proteomes. In this study, we compared six proteomic extraction methods on Late Pleistocene remains with variable levels of proteome preservation. We tested the accuracy of species identification, protein sequence coverage, deamidation, and the number of post-translational modifications per method. We find striking differences in obtained proteome complexity and sequence coverage, highlighting that simple acid-insoluble proteome extraction methods perform better in highly degraded contexts. For well-preserved specimens, the approach using EDTA demineralization and protease-mix proteolysis yielded a higher number of identified peptides. The protocols presented here allowed protein extraction from ancient bone with a minimum number of working steps and equipment and yielded protein extracts within three working days. We expect further development along this route to benefit large-scale screening applications of relevance to archaeological and human evolution research.

2023Journal article

Open Access