#archaeometry

[ancientstuff]

Twice as many women as men were buried in the megalithic necropolis of Panoría, study reveals

A multidisciplinary research team led by the Archaeometry research group of the University of Tübingen and the GEA research group of the Uni

This is a really odd discovery. Does it indicate matrilineal descent? How? I'll have to read the scientific article, I guess. Not sure it will be able to convince me, but we'll see.

[casethejointfirst]

Recently, I've been working on analyzing surficial weathering of chert using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). In order to isolate the weathered surfaces for top-down analysis, chert fragments were mounted in epoxy, cut, ground, and polished. Because the ablation cell is small and geologic samples and lithic artifacts are often prohibitively large, I designed custom sample cups and had them 3D printed. These cups were the right size for the ablation chamber and helped to align the chert samples perfectly. A few failed (leaked), but they still served their purpose in mounting the chert samples. Tomorrow I will analyze the samples! More updates soon!

[skyprowler]

Archaeometry at it's best:

[...] A sealed Iler's Malt Whiskey bottle with a remnant of a dark yellow liquid was recovered from a privy site in the state of Washington.

It had been stored on the shelves of the Burke Museum in Seattle for approximately 15 years.

A sample of this liquid, presumed to be whiskey, was submitted to our laboratory for analysis . [...] These findings left little doubt that the liquid in the whiskey bottle was in fact not a distillery product but urine. [...]

But also:

[arqueologiadelperu]

Pigmentos y tecnología artística mochicas

Pigmentos y tecnología artística mochicas

Resumen: Para la civilización mochica, el arte mural representaba una expresión artística muy importante que permitía a la élite transmitir al pueblo una codificación simbólica de su propio poder. Por ende, más allá de un rol decorativo, desempeñaba una función de vector ideológico, fundamental para esta sociedad sin escritura textual. La importancia del adorno mural en esta sociedad llevó el…

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[learnarchaeology]

Geochemical Methods for Sourcing Lava Paving Stones from the Roman Roads of Central Italy

This paper documents the results of in situ analysis of 306 lava paving stones and 74 possible source rocks using pXRF. Data were collected from sites both in the city of Rome—on major roads beyond the...

Open Access (free) article

[openaccessarchaeology]

Archaeometry Workshop- Open Access Journal

Archaeometry Workshop is e-journal published by the Hungarian National Museum. Started in 2004, this journal focuses are archaeology method and sciences. It is published in both Hungarian and English, 3x a year, but most of the articles are in Hungarian. If your into sciences and new techniques then I recommend checking out the journal- http://www.ace.hu/am/indexe.html

The cool part is that this publication developed out of workshops several universities and highschools all over Hungary. Glad to see they are trying to hook them young.

[sonicarcreactor]

My professor attempted to explain isotopic fractionation with macaroni & cheese and peanut butter.

He went on like that for ten minutes while I sat there with my head down on my desk trying not to laugh too loudly. Not a lecture I was ready to handle at 9 AM on a Monday.