Dust as a Forensic and Archaeometric Archive: Insights from Elemental and Isotopic Analysis

J. Irrgeher, Leoben/AT, P. Engel, Krems/AT, S. Widhalm, Leoben/AT, S. Tourey, Leoben/AT, T. Prohaska, Leoben/AT

Dust represents a ubiquitous yet often overlooked archive that records information about the time, environment, and location in which objects have been produced, stored, or handled. In this contribution, we highlight two contrasting case studies—one from forensic science and one from archaeometry—to demonstrate how dust adsorbed onto objects can reveal information on their origin and/or location in very different contexts. In both cases, multi-element patterns combined with 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios were employed as tracers for provenance determination. While such approaches rarely allow the assignment of a single, unequivocal place of origin, they enable meaningful geographic constraints, exclusion of unlikely sources, and a refined interpretation of an object’s history.
In one case study presented here, dust recovered from an object associated with a kidnapping was analysed to reconstruct possible locations where the object had been used or stored by the perpetrator. Elemental fingerprints combined with 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios enabled the exclusion of several potential environments and provided strong constraints on the geographic areas consistent with the dust signature, thereby supporting investigative hypotheses regarding the movements and activities of the suspect.
In a second case study, we explore the potential of dust as an intrinsic indicator for provenance and authenticity studies of historical documents. With permission from the Monastery of Kremsmünster and Zwettl Monastery, dust samples were collected from early parchment and paper manuscripts and analysed for their elemental composition and 87Sr/86Sr. These geochemical signatures provide insights into the environmental and geological context in which the documents were produced or stored.