Table 5. Steroid ratios for detection and identification of a faecal input applied on archaeological soil samples.

No.	Ratio	Dormagen					Inden			Düren-Arnoldsweiler
		Cess-pit	Stable			Control	Sewer		Control	Well
			Drain (brown filling)	Drain (green filling)	Stable area		70 cm depth	80 cm depth		LBK	Bronze Age	Iron Age
	Ratios for mere detection of faecal matter
I	(coprostanol + epicoprostanol) / (5α-cholestanol + coprostanol + epicoprostanol) †	0.57	0.32	0.26	0	0	0.43	0.30	0	0.89	0.70	0.37
II	(5β-stigmastanol + epi-5β-stigmastanol) / (5α-stigmastanol + 5β-stigmastanol + epi-5β-stigmastanol) ‡	0.37	0.35	0.15	0.11	0.14	0.37	0.55	0.15	0.31	0.58	0.18
	Ratios for identification of faecal matter
V	coprostanol / (coprostanol + 5β-stigmastanol) x 100% §	46%	29%	39%	0%	0%	28%	18%	0%	40%	12%	42%
VI	epi-5β-stigmastanol / 5β-stigmastanol + epicoprostanol / coprostanol	0.58	1.74	1.50	-	-	0.50	1.42	-	0.41	2.90	1.04
	Bile acid ratios
	DCA / LCA	11	5.6	9.3	6.7	8.9	10	1.7	13	7.4	14.1	6.3
	DCA / CDCA	8.2	6.1	9.2	9.1	9.4	11	4.5	3.2	37	24	204
	CDCA / LCA	1.3	0.9	1.0	0.7	1.0	0.9	0.4	4.1	0.2	0.6	0.03
	HDCA / LCA	4.6	1.2	4.3	1.3	3.5	14	0.8	11	9.5	11	1.1

All ratios calculated from the means of n = 3 laboratory replicates; when steroid contents were below the routine quantification limit, they were treated as zero for the calculation of the ratios.

References for the used ratios:

^† Bull et al., 1999;

^‡ modified from Bull et al., 1999;

^§ Leeming et al., 1997

CDCA = chenodeoxycholic acid, DCA = deoxycholic acid, HDCA = hyodeoxycholic acid, LCA = lithocholic acid