Michael Buckley

Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry;

the past, present and future of ZooMS

Dr Micheal Buckley

Royal Society University Research Fellow, The University of Manchester.

For well over a decade we have been using proteomic methods as a means of species identification in archaeological bone, which involved a range of methodologies. This presentation will briefly discuss some of the key developments that enabled the current ZooMS methods, including acids used for decalcification, different separation techniques and enzymes along with applications to different proteins. However, once the approach to ‘collagen fingerprinting’ was established, this then enabled an increase in the range of taxa studied, as well as amenability to high-throughput processing. Yet with more data it has become clear that different approaches to biomarker selection are needed, more objective than the manual approaches used previously. With this in mind our recent research has delved into machine learning methods of data interpretation which have proven ideal for biomarker discovery in large assemblages of spectra, as well as refined identification. This presentation will focus on the current limitations of moving towards large scale analyses and various attempts to address them.