Suspicious minds: a molecular taphonomic approach to preservation of the central nervous system

Seviour, AL

Thesis

Suspicious minds: a molecular taphonomic approach to preservation of the central nervous system

Abstract:: Brains decompose rapidly after death, yet are frequently recovered in the archaeological record, often as the only surviving soft tissue. This paradox exposes a major gap in our current understanding of soft tissue preservation: existing models treat decay and preservation as opposing, antithetical outcomes, and do not adequately account for inter-organ divergence during decomposition. This thesis resolves that paradox by integrating a global archaeological synthesis with deep palaeoproteomic profiling and experimental decay.

An archive of more than 4,400 preserved human brains spanning ~ 12,000 years was compiled, of which over 1,300 derived from otherwise skeletonised remains in wet, oxygen-poor environments. These cases define a previously undescribed preservation type consistent with an organ-specific taphonomic trajectory. To determine the molecular composition of brains of this type, an optimised palaeoproteomic workflow was developed using high-resolution mass spectrometry: more than 1,200 proteins were recovered from a single archaeological brain, demonstrating that ancient soft tissues can preserve high-dimensional proteomes far richer than those typically retrievable from hard tissues. To identify the mechanism underpinning the unknown taphonomic trajectory, mice carcasses were experimentally decayed for six months under varied water–oxygen regimes, and over 1.26 million peptide-specific decay profiles modelled to distinguish decay-prone from decay-resistant brain peptides.

Different burial environments yielded reproducible divergence in molecular fate: waterlogged, hypoxic conditions favour the selective persistence of structurally ordered, redox-active, membrane-associated brain peptides, bearing modification patterns consistent with radical-mediated oxidation followed by local termination and crosslinking, rather than with chain-propagating fragmentation. Decomposition is shown to be a branching chemical process in which intrinsic tissue chemistry and early post-mortem environmental conditions jointly determine whether stabilising or destabilising reactions prevail. Soft tissue preservation is thus reframed as a potential outcome of decay itself, and a molecular framework established for predicting when complex biomolecular information is likely to be retained in the archaeological record.

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APA Style

Seviour, A. L. (2026). Suspicious minds: a molecular taphonomic approach to preservation of the central nervous system [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.

MLA Style

Seviour, AL. Suspicious Minds: a Molecular Taphonomic Approach to Preservation of the Central Nervous System. 2026. University of Oxford, PhD thesis.

Chicago Style

Seviour, AL. 2026. “Suspicious Minds: a Molecular Taphonomic Approach to Preservation of the Central Nervous System.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
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