Archaeological implications of the digestion of starches by soil bacteria: 
Interaction among starches leads to differential preservation

Hutschenreuther, Antje; Watzke, Jörg; Schmidt, Simone; Büdel, Thomas; Henry, Amanda G.

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.07.006

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Archaeological implications of the digestion of starches by soil bacteria: Interaction among starches leads to differential preservation

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Hutschenreuther, Antje
Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Watzke, Jörg
Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Schmidt, Simone
Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Büdel, Thomas
Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Henry, Amanda G.
Max Planck Research Group on Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Hutschenreuther, A., Watzke, J., Schmidt, S., Büdel, T., & Henry, A. G. (2017). Archaeological implications of the digestion of starches by soil bacteria: Interaction among starches leads to differential preservation. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 15, 95-108. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.07.006.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002D-A90B-2

Abstract

Soil bacteria damage and destroy starch granules in archaeological contexts, but most studies of this kind of damage report on pairings of a single bacterial species with starches from a single plant species. Here we report the results of experiments in which starch granules from multiple plants were digested by a community of soil bacteria. The damage patterns of this bacterial community generally match those for single bacterial strains, and vary among plant species. However, when the bacteria are exposed to a mixture of starches from different taxa, certain plants are digested in favor of others. This variation in digestion could lead to a bias in the starches represented in the archaeological record. The types of damage observed in this experiment are further compared against that observed on archaeological starches recovered from dental calculus and stone tools.