Ionoluminescence investigations of ancient human bone with an external ion beam

In this paper we briefly describe the present experimental set-up used for ionoluminescence (IL) measurements. As one of the first applications of the IL method we studied the IL of femoral cross-sections of ancient human bones in order to get more information about diagenetic alteration of bone mineral. With increasing distance from the periosteal edge of the bone, a change of the luminescence from orange to blue was found. The IL spectra consist of two broad bands centred at λ=440 and λ=590 nm, respectively. The intensity of the latter one corresponds well with the Mn content obtained by μPIXE measurements. Therefore, the luminescence band at 590 nm most likely results from luminescence activation by Mn 2+ ions incorporated into the bone mineral, possibly due to the ion exchange process Ca 2+↔ Mn 2+ which occurred during the time that the bone was buried in the soil.