Research Training Program

Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Natural History

PROJECT SUMMARY
1995

Bret A. Payseur
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO
Noreen Tuross
Supervising Scientist
Conservation Analytical Laboratory
"The Research Training Program provides a special opportunity for undergraduates to interrogate museum-related issues and problems that might otherwise be out of their reach. The program changed the way I look at myself, science, and the world. Furthermore, the friendships established through participation in the program will be long-lasting, due in particular to a commonality of interests and prospective futures. The program receives my strongest recommendation for anyone innervated by the myriad questions of the life sciences."

Molecular Taphonomy and the Bones of Amboseli

ABSTRACT
Researchers are beginning to find that levels of preservation of informative macromolecules, including deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein, in many archaeological and paleontological specimens are better than they initially anticipated. Hence, understanding the preservative and degradative effects the environment exerts on these biomolecules post-mortem is becoming more important. Because of the magnitude of immediate post-mortem destruction of organic remains, preservation analyses that deal with periods of time shortly after death should be of special interest to paleontolgists and archaeologists.

In this biochemical taphonomic project, the preservation of protein and DNA in a fifteen year series of naturally aged East African mammalian bones was studied. Anna K. Behrensmeyer began collecting and monitoring the bones in 1975, and returned annually through 1990 to assay the effects of the environment and ecology of the Amboseli plains ecosystem (Kenya) on these naturally decaying bone assemblages. Three sequential extractions (denaturing, demineralizing, and deproteinizing) were carried out on two elephants and one wildebeast from Behrensmeyer's collection. Some temporal trends in extractability of protein and DNA in these different solutions were identified, which provides important clues regarding the association of these macromolecules with different portions of bone post-mortem. A particularly interesting result was an apparent concentration of high molecular weight DNA in an extraction from collagen as the length of surface exposure time increased. This result suggested the possibility that DNA was forming extra-stable complexes (cross-links) with collagen over this fifteen year period of time, and becoming further protected from degradation. The results of this study and its future continuation are relevant to scientists in the fields of forensics, vertebrate paleontology, and archaeology.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, Award Number BIR-9300225.

Letter of Gratitude