The identification of archaeological eggshell using peptide markers

Samantha Presslee; Julie Wilson; Jos Woolley; Julia Best; Douglas Russell; Anita Radini; Roman Fischer; Benedikt Kessler; Rosa Boano; Matthew Collins; Beatrice Demarchi

doi:10.1080/20548923.2018.1424300

The identification of archaeological eggshell using peptide markers

Samantha Presslee^*, Julie Wilson, Jos Woolley, Julia Best, Douglas Russell, Anita Radini, Roman Fischer, Benedikt Kessler, Rosa Boano, Matthew Collins, Beatrice Demarchi

^*Corresponding author for this work

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Avian eggshell survives well in alkaline and neutral soils, but its potential as an archaeological resource remains largely unexplored, mainly due to difficulties in its identification. Here we exploit the release of novel bird genomes and, for the first time on eggshell, use MALDI-ToF (matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time of flight) mass spectrometry in combination with peptide sequencing by LC-MS/MS. The eggshell proteome is revealed as unexpectedly complex, with 5755 proteins identified for a reference collection comprising 23 bird species. We determined 782 m/z markers useful for eggshell identification, 583 of which could be assigned to known eggshell peptide sequences. These were used to identify eggshell fragments recovered from a medieval site at Freeschool Lane, Leicester. We discuss the specificity of the peptide markers and highlight the importance of assessing the level of taxonomic identification achievable for archaeological interpretation.

Original language	English
Journal	Science and Technology of Archaeological Research
Volume	3
Issue number	1
Pages (from-to)	89-99
Number of pages	11
ISSN	2054-8923
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/20548923.2018.1424300
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2017

Keywords

birds
Eggshell
mass spectrometry (ZooMS)
proteomics
zooarchaeology

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AU - Wilson, Julie

AU - Woolley, Jos

AU - Best, Julia

AU - Russell, Douglas

AU - Radini, Anita

AU - Fischer, Roman

AU - Kessler, Benedikt

AU - Boano, Rosa

AU - Collins, Matthew

AU - Demarchi, Beatrice

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The identification of archaeological eggshell using peptide markers

Abstract

Keywords

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