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Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples
The detection of complex poison recipes applied to ancient hunting weapons has the potential to provide important insights into traditional pharmacological knowledge systems. Yet, recipes comprising many ingredients can be challenging to decipher, especially in older samples that have undergone biod...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10363533/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37482542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38735-0 |
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author | Isaksson, Sven Högberg, Anders Lombard, Marlize Bradfield, Justin |
author_facet | Isaksson, Sven Högberg, Anders Lombard, Marlize Bradfield, Justin |
author_sort | Isaksson, Sven |
collection | PubMed |
description | The detection of complex poison recipes applied to ancient hunting weapons has the potential to provide important insights into traditional pharmacological knowledge systems. Yet, recipes comprising many ingredients can be challenging to decipher, especially in older samples that have undergone biodegradation. We present the results of our attempt to analyze samples of poison collected from nineteenth and twentieth century arrowheads from southern Africa, and from a 1000-year-old archaeological bone point. The arrow poison residues and reference samples were analyzed by Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR FTIR) and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS). The ATR FTIR analysis is primarily able to separate between different arrow poison binder recipes. The extractives identified by GC–MS analysis consist of a multitude of components from both binders and active substances, confirming and adding to the results from the ATR FTIR analyses. We discuss the results in terms of potential biomarkers for arrow poisons in organic residue analyses of archaeological artefacts; that residues of toxic cardiotonic glycosides can be detected on curated and excavated arrow tips of between about 1000 and 100 years old, serves as proof of concept for working with older materials in the future. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10363533 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-103635332023-07-25 Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples Isaksson, Sven Högberg, Anders Lombard, Marlize Bradfield, Justin Sci Rep Article The detection of complex poison recipes applied to ancient hunting weapons has the potential to provide important insights into traditional pharmacological knowledge systems. Yet, recipes comprising many ingredients can be challenging to decipher, especially in older samples that have undergone biodegradation. We present the results of our attempt to analyze samples of poison collected from nineteenth and twentieth century arrowheads from southern Africa, and from a 1000-year-old archaeological bone point. The arrow poison residues and reference samples were analyzed by Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR FTIR) and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS). The ATR FTIR analysis is primarily able to separate between different arrow poison binder recipes. The extractives identified by GC–MS analysis consist of a multitude of components from both binders and active substances, confirming and adding to the results from the ATR FTIR analyses. We discuss the results in terms of potential biomarkers for arrow poisons in organic residue analyses of archaeological artefacts; that residues of toxic cardiotonic glycosides can be detected on curated and excavated arrow tips of between about 1000 and 100 years old, serves as proof of concept for working with older materials in the future. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC10363533/ /pubmed/37482542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38735-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Isaksson, Sven Högberg, Anders Lombard, Marlize Bradfield, Justin Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title | Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title_full | Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title_fullStr | Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title_full_unstemmed | Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title_short | Potential biomarkers for southern African hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
title_sort | potential biomarkers for southern african hunter-gatherer arrow poisons applied to ethno-historical and archaeological samples |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10363533/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37482542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38735-0 |
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