Hi Chloé

I agree with Andrew, but I haven’t ever sent samples from archaeological ribs. The dating lab will ask for a weight of bone so you can sample a smaller area from an element with denser cortical bone. I have been asked for up to c.2g for a radiocarbon sample.

If choosing a bone to rc sample from a complete or partial skeleton I would think about the following aspects

Preservation – dating specialists have said to me that you can’t determine how well preserved collagen is and therefore whether a bone will return a date by looking at it, but would avoid bones that appear poorly preserved or are light in weight. Also avoid burnt bones (unless fully calcined)

Minimising loss of information – try to take a sample that doesn’t impact on zooarchaeological data (ie morphological features used for determining taxa, sex etc, measurement anchor points, pathologies, carcass processing marks). If it’s a partial skeleton I would probably choose to sample from an element for which the other side (or another repeat) is present.

Avoid contaminants – avoid any bones that have been treated with chemicals (eg consolidants) or areas of bones which have been labelled.

I also fully record and take photos prior to sampling and record which bones have been sampled in my datasets

There is some more information in a free publication ‘Science and the Dead’  which is focussed on human remains but is obviously also applicable to animals http://www.archaeologyuk.org/apabe/pdf/Science_and_the_Dead.pdf

best wishes

Fay

Fay Worley PhD

Zooarchaeologist
Historic England, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Road, Portsmouth PO4 9LD
Fort Cumberland reception: 02392856704