Calcined bones

Calcined bones are created when living things are burned. In prehistoric times the dead were burned in large parts of Europe . The heat of the pyre often reached temperatures above 600 ° C. The soft tissues of the body burned as well as the organic collagen that is stored in bones. What remained were the burned-out bones, which only consisted of the mineral framework ( hydroxyapatite ; calcium phosphate ) and are known as calcined bones. Because of their mostly chalk-white color, these bones stand out well from the ground and can therefore be traced relatively easily.

But parts of the sacrificed animals were also burned on huge pyre in sanctuaries , so that their bones also calcined. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish the bone remains from both grave sites and burnt sacrifice sites at first glance. Since the bones shrink strongly due to the burning out of the organic components and also burst into numerous fragments, a determination of the species - even whether it is human or animal - is often difficult or impossible even for specialists such as anthropologists or zoologists .

literature

• Joachim Wahl, Gerhard Wesselkamp: Karies, Kampf u. Skull cult. 150 years of anthropological research in southwest Germany , Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3806221324
• Jörg Scheidt: The ossuary of Oppenheim. In: Oppenheimer Hefte 40 , Oppenheim 2011, pp. 17–41