The protocol of preparation of keratinized samples (e.g. hair, furs …) for radiocarbon dating that we have developed is based on the selective extraction of keratin from the bulk part of the shaft (cortex).
For the first time, the incidence of cervical cancer was estimated in French Guiana, an overseas French Territory of South America. A certified cancer registry collected exhaustive data on cervical cancer between 2003 and 2005. The age-standardized rate of invasive cervical cancer was 30.3 per 100,000 women. Women from rural areas had lesions with a significantly greater extension than women from urban areas. Compared to South American figures, the standardized incidence of cervical cancer seemed relatively high when viewed in comparison with the gross domestic product per capita. The curative orientation of the health system should move from opportunistic screening for cervical cancer to organized screening, with an emphasis on the rural parts of French Guiana.
This article describes the contribution of the radiocarbon dating method to the authentication of ethnographic objects on some significant examples coming from the collections of the Quai Branly Museum (Paris, France) and the Museum of African Arts (Marseilles, France). The first object is a bludgeon of hard wood from the Tupinambá ethnic group and thought to be brought from Brazil by Andre Thévet, cosmographer of King Francis I. This object supposedly dates to the 16th century. Another example concerns a series of architectural columns, brought from Peru in 1910 by Captain Paul Berthon from the archaeological site of Pachacamac, the largest sanctuary on the central coast of Peru. These pieces have induced a strong reaction in the French scientific community, which has described them as “some vulgar fake” because of a particular decoration and also their unique typology. We will present also the dating of 2 Tibetan textiles and 2 pre-Columbian ponchos made with feathers, which were not well documented. The last example concerns a decorated skull covered with a mosaic of blue and black turquoises and belonging to a civilization predating the Aztecs (AD 1300–1500). All these examples illustrate the decisive contribution of 14C dating to the authentication of museum objects that lack information about their origin.
Many French museums keep in their reserves a great number of mummified human remains. Beyond any ethical or deontological issues, they constitute an important part of our archaeological and historical heritage. Their dating is often inexact and imprecise, but nevertheless this parameter is very interesting, especially if correlated or associated with other analytical or typological data, e.g. the process of mummification. The present study has been carried out in the context of a multidisciplinary scientific program on a set of Coptic mummies found at the site of Antinoe (Egypt), deposited in the Louvre Museum or sent by the state to various other French museums. To minimize the sample size, we have developed a new method for the pretreatment of hair samples before accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. Thus, we have taken samples from ≃30 mummies, distributed in 8 museums around France, and also from different textiles or plants near or on the bodies. The results and conclusions show the importance of dating mummies in a museum context. For example, 14C dates permit the exclusion of the assumed relationship of a woman with a child. Similarly, a hair sample from the head of a mummy presents a very different 14C date from that of the hair across her chest. The results show that these hairs came from another mummy and were probably placed there intentionally by the people in charge of the collections.
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