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Updated: Sep 13, 2025
Sampling and Pretreatment of Tooth Enamel Carbonate for Stable Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Analysis
Published on: August 15, 2018
Methodological Considerations for the Use of Acid-Based Pre-Treatment Protocols for Carbon and Oxygen Analysis of
Karolina Varkulevičiūtė1,2, Christine Winter-Schuh1,2, Cheryl A Makarewicz1,2
1Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
Rationale:
Chemical pre-treatment is a common methodological step aimed to remove exogenous materials introduced to archaeological tooth enamel in the burial environment through diagenetic processes. However, some of these methods, involving the use of oxidising reagents such as NaClO, H2O2, as well as weak acids like CH3COOH, have been shown to alter the chemical composition and stable isotope values of enamel. Here, we aim to re-examine the effects of commonly used pre-treatment protocols on bioapatite δ13C and δ18O values, and investigate the relationship between diagenetic alteration and measured isotope values, as indicated by pre-screening using attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy.
Methods:
Modern and archaeological samples were subjected to 10 commonly used pre-treatment protocols that apply NaClO, H2O2 and/or CH3COOH to tooth enamel powders at treatment lengths. Preservation status and diagenetic alteration prior to and after treatment were investigated using ATR-FTIR. δ13C and δ18O values were measured before and after treatment to determine if different wet chemistry protocols induced isotopic shifts.
Results:
The results show that all pre-treatment protocols imparted shifts in δ13C and δ18O values of up to ± 1.5‰ in both archaeological and modern samples. Most treated samples display increased crystallinity, likely indicating sample recrystallisation. We suggest that these changes indicate the removal of contamination and diagenetic alteration, and also the dissolution and restructuring of enamel carbonate leading to changes in the in vivo isotope signal.
Conclusions:
We discourage the use of H2O2 and NaClO to remove organic matter from samples as it incurs unwanted changes to the enamel structure and carbon and oxygen isotope ratios. We also recommend the use of only short-duration acetic acid treatment protocols to avoid recrystallisation caused by prolonged acid exposure and concomitant unwanted change to in vivo isotope values.
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