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Determining 14C Content in Different Human Tissues: Implications for Application of 14C Bomb-Spike Dating in Forensic Medicine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Lucio Calcagnile ,
Gianluca Quarta ,
Cristina Cattaneo  and
Marisa D'Elia
Lucio Calcagnile*
Affiliation:
CEDAD-Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Gianluca Quarta
Affiliation:
CEDAD-Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Cristina Cattaneo
Affiliation:
LABANOF, Department of Human Morphology and Biomedical Sciences, University of Milan, Italy
Marisa D'Elia
Affiliation:
CEDAD-Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
*
2Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Various samples extracted from human tissues (with different radiocarbon turnover rates) of a post-bomb human body were submitted to accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating: hair; a cortical fraction of a skull bone; a trabecular fraction of a pubic symphysis; and enamel extracted from permanent teeth with different dates of formation were analyzed. The analyzed samples showed varying 14C concentrations corresponding to different times of formation or different turnover rates. The implications of the results in forensics studies are discussed.

Type
Unusual Applications of 14C Measurement
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 55 , Issue 3: Proceedings of the 21st International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , 2013 , pp. 1845 - 1849
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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