Daniel P. Kirby

Analysis of not-yet-ancient proteins with ZooMS: boots-on-the-ground application to contemporary cultural heritage.

42 Cliff Road, Milton, MA 02186 USA

ZooMS is helping to advance the detection, characterization and understanding of proteins from ancient archaeological materials. Unquestionably of great value in that arena, ZooMS is also having a significant impact in another arena—that encompassing proteins from contemporary cultural heritage. ZooMS/PMF methods developed for the analysis of ancient materials readily lend themselves to the analysis of modern materials and provide an attractive alternative for the identification of collagen-based materials in cultural objects, a task historically accomplished mainly through visual and tactile inspection. The sensitivity and species-specificity possible with PMF have up until now not been available to conservators and cultural stakeholders. Although not as eye catching as the discovery of ancient proteins from dinosaurs or extinct camelids or Ötzi’s furs, nevertheless the accurate identification of materials in an Alutiiq warrior-whaler kayak or a pre-Columbian Aztec feather shield, for example, is equally significant to the stake holders of those objects and an important step toward providing an accurate cultural heritage record.

A simple PMF procedure has been adapted from pioneering work by researchers at York and Manchester Universities and applied to many hundreds of samples from a wide range of objects of diverse sources. Scores of students and conservators have been taught the method; minimally invasive sampling techniques have been developed to make the method accessible to a wide range of objects.

In this talk, examples from contemporary objects—Cross River dance masks, a Mughal shield, papier mâché anatomical models, anthropodermic bookbindings and the fixative on some John Constable sketches, for example—will be used to illustrate the application of PMF and demonstrate its importance to cultural heritage.