Primary structure of archaeological silk and ancient climate

Abstract The fractions of glycine residues were determined with the aid of solid-state 13 C high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance for silks found in the coffins of three lords of the Fujiwara clans (12th century in northeastern Japan). Two indices defined by Nunome were also determined for these samples from electron microscope observation. These three quantities are non-linearly dependent on time (years), and they can be correlated with the temperature (climate) which was determined from dendrochronological data.