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Featured Research

Hannah Koon
Collagen as a molecular thermometer

About Hannah's Research

Hannah's idea began as a Masters project in Bradford with former York graduate Rebecca Nicholson, now Environmental Archaeology Manager at Oxford Archaeology.  Their idea was take explore further a paper published by Jane Richter in 1986 'Experimental study of heat induced morphological changes in fish bone collagen'.  Hannah explore a range of experimentally buried bone samples from Rebecca's DPhil, and was able to demonstrate that she could discriminate uncooked from boiled bone, her first paper was published in 2003.  She completed a PhD three years later in the BioArCh group, in which she refined the method.

Boiled bone is surprisingly difficult to detect, even in forensic cases, never mind archaeology.

A forensic connection

BioArCh had been interested in detecting cooked bone for a long time. We were first approached by the police to try and help them with a tricky forensic case more than five years earlier; we failed.  Hannah's careful research resulted in a method that could reveal cooking as subtle distortions in the collagen fibrils, changes so subtle they had to be revealed  by further chemical treatment.   

The first direct application of her work was forensic, not archaeological, following a request for help from the US Military who were trying to improve the recovery of DNA from the remains of servicemen who had lost their lives in past conflicts.  She used a revised version of the method and identified the reason why some of the bones would not yield their DNA, in this case it was due to attempts to chemically stabilise the remains following their recovery.  Although Hannah is now conducting a Fellowship at Harvard and has been exploring ways in which Mass Spectrometry can be used to detect metabolic disease in bone, her cooking technique won't go away  She has recently been helping a large international team explore the mystery of an early Neolithic burial which some archaeologists believe shows evidence of cannibalism; a program featuring her research has been broadcast by National Geographic.

Want to know more?

Visit Hanna Koon's  personal web page and the Research group web pages.

• KOON, H., NICHOLSON, R. & COLLINS, M. J. 2003. A practical approach to the identification of low temperature heated bone using TEM. J. Arch. Sci., 30, 1393-1399. dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0305-4403(03)00034-7
• KOON, H., O'CONNOR, T. & COLLINS, M. J. 2009. Sorting the butchered from the boiled. J. Arch. Sci., 37, 62-69. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.08.015
  
• KOON, H. E. C., LOREILLE, O. M., COVINGTON, A. D., CHRISTENSEN, A. F., PARSONS, T. J. & COLLINS, M. J. 2008. Diagnosing post-mortem treatments which inhibit DNA amplification from US MIAs buried at the Punchbowl. Forensic Sci Int, 178, 171-177. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2008.03.015
  
• OTTONI, C., KOON, H., COLLINS, M. J. & PENKMAN, K. E. H. 2009. Preservation of ancient DNA in thermally damaged archaeological bone. Naturwissenschaften, 96, 267-278. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0478-5

Image: from National Geographic Lost Cannibals of Europe