Folks,
A while back on this list (ASA) I reported an abstract given last year at the International Botanical Congress by Avinoam Danin
That suggested the work of a palynologist (Uri Baruch) showed that the pollen grains from the cloth of the Shroud came from plants some of which were endemic to the area around Israel. You can see a copy of that abstract online at url: http://hoya.mobot.org/absdetail.cfm?ID=4188 At the time I did some research and came to the conclusion that Uri Baruch seems to be a competent palynologists from the work he has done.
However, I was just reading a palynological publication Palynos and found a review of a recently book, (Flora of the Shroud of Turin), that Avinoam published along with Uri and some others. In this publication (online at url:http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/plns0600.html) Vaughn M. Bryant reviews the book. He is a pollen expert who has worked with recent pollen (different from he Paleozoic coal stuff I work with), and suggests that the authors have not been convincing that the pollen can be identified with the techniques they describe. Apparently they only document use of light microscopy, which the author says can be used for identification to the specific level in less than one percent of the time for at least species in the critical family (Asteracea). For identification to the specific level of these angiosperm grains the author says you really need SEM or TEM and there is no documentation those were used in this study. The reviewer does raise some good questions about the palynological scien
ce, but it is also clear that he has not looked at a lot of the composite family pollen grains himself. On the other hand it is clear from his publications that Baruch has looked at a lot of the palynological flora of the Middle east, but I think reviewer still raises some very legitimate questions that should be answered on how the identification of plants was so specific. Without the pollen grains being identified to the proper endemic species of plants the case becomes very weak.
cc to acb-l (association of christian biologists)
James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279
Biology Department FAX : 712 722-1198
Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250
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