Achaeometrical Research in Hungary II., 1988

PROSPECTING and DATING - János CSAPÓ - Zsuzsanna CSAPÓ-KISS - János CSAPÓ JR.: How the amino acids and amino acid racemization can be used and with what limits for age determination of fossil materials in archaeometry

mentioning is the lower tyrosine, methionine and lysine contents of the ancient wool. Another indicator of the partial decomposition of amino acids is tá'e high ammonia content in the older carpet. With respect to the other amino acids, the three examined samples were very similar. Table 13 Amino acid composition of Hungarian Merino sheep's wool, modern wool carpet and 550-year-old carpet samples Amino acids feAMOteprofcii) Wool

1 Modern carpet

1 Old car pet

1

'

2 Amino acids feAMOteprofcii) Mean S.D. Mean S.D. jtylean S.D. Cysteic acid 0.150 0.009 0.312 0.026 V.854* 0.212 Asp 7.36 0.34 7.44 0.39 7.74 0.68 Thr 5.93 0.31 6.11 0.29 5.75 0.34 Ser 7.55 0.27 7.77 0.34 á.93* 0.43 Glu 12.53 0.29 12.12 0.27 12.80 0.31 Pro 6.43 0.25 6.44 0.37 6.45 0.62 Gly 4.68 0.21 5.23 0.19 5.46* 0.28 Ala 4.52 0.19 4.84 0.20 5.19 0.34 Cys 10.18 0.27 7.90 0.26 3.09* 0.27 Val 7.02 0.33 7.27 0.41 7.23 0.52 Met 0.47 0.04 0.43 0.05 0.21* 0.07 He 3.73 0.21 3.91 0.28 3.66 0.24 Leu 8.10 0.39 8.37 0.41 8.07 0.43 Tyr 3.02 0.27 3.14 0.30 2.08* 0.38 Phe 4.22 0.35 4.36 0.41 4.28 0.49 Lys 3.29 0.21 3.49 0.26 2.72* 0.37 His 0.76 0.18 0.68 0.10 0.51 0.153 Arg 7.68 0.63 7.94 0.72 7.84 1.03 Ammonia 2.38 0.21 2.25 0.24 6.15* 0.49 AA= Amino acid; A number of the samples=5; 2 estimated age (years)=550 •Contrast of (wool + modern carpet )/2 - old carpet has (P < .01) Comparison of coefficients of variation (CV) for the three types of samples would indicate greater variability among samples of the older carpet than in the modern wools. However, virtually all of the increased CV's are associated with significant decreases in the means and relatively stable standard deviations. As a result, we can conclude that analytical precision is essentially equal for both type of samples. 3.3.3. Relationship of age of sample with cysteic acid, cystine, methionine and tyrosine contents After the optimisation of hydrolysis time and the examination of reliability of the analytical method, we proceeded to the analysis of the composition of samples obtained from the Hungarian Industrial Art Museum (Table 10) and the Hungarian National Museum (Table 11). We often had only a few milligrams of fabric originating from ancient clothing or decorations. As a consequence, the data shown in Table 14 for such materials 41