Patrick AUGUSTE, researcher at UMR 8198 Evolution, Ecology and Paleontology (EEP), CNRS - University of Lille

I am a paleontologist and archaeozoologist, I work on mammal fossils discovered in Paleolithic sites. My objectives are to identify the animal species present in the accumulations left by prehistoric humans, in order to study the evolution of past biodiversity, environmental changes, but also the subsistence behaviors of the different populations of Hominids responsible for the slaughters. of these animals. I therefore have to identify very small fragments of bones, linked to bone fracturing in order to recover the marrow.

A collaboration was established with the team of MSAP chemists, in order to develop new protocols for extracting bone material from ancient to very old bones (40 to 000 years old) and to identify the different animal species. encountered during archaeological and paleontological excavations. We turned to the Maldi-FT-ICR, due to its very high resolution and the lower quantity of material to take for each sample.

Patrick Auguste holding a cave lion skull, with pyrography in the background   cave bear and a saber-toothed feline

Comparison between spectra obtained by Maldi-Tof and Maldi-FTICR on 123 year old aurochs collagen

This interdisciplinary collaboration, very strongly supported by the CNRS, the Hauts-de-France region and the ANR, has allowed us to considerably improve the paleoproteomic discipline along two axes:

1/ reduce the quantity of bone taken in each sample, going to 1 mg (other methods use 5 to 100 mg)

2/ increase the number of samples processed by FT-ICR analysis (96-well plates).

A full-scale test was carried out on bones dated 123 years ago, which were very difficult to identify by osteomorphology, and 000% of the 93 bones sampled allowed identification of the animals, the subject of the recently published article.

Find out more: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.2c03301.

Platform used: MSAP, CNRS/University of Lille