Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: XRF/pXRF (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Pintar. María Fernanda Rodríguez.

The earliest occupations in the Salt Puna —a high elevation desert in the Andes Mountains — date to the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and are relevant to the discussion of the timing of the first exploration and colonization of South American elevations above 3500m, as well as the relationship between mountain environments and other ecological areas. The wooden shafts used in the extractive technologies of the earliest hunter-gatherers originated outside the Puna, in the eastern lowlands....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Velázquez-Maldonado. Berenice Pedroza. David Larreina-García. Mario A. Retiz-García. Blanca Maldonado.

This is an abstract from the "Technological Transitions in Prehispanic and Colonial Metallurgy: Recent and Ongoing Research at the Archaeological Site of Jicalán Viejo, in Central Michoacán, West Mexico" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sitio arqueológico de Jicalán Viejo (posclásico tardío - colonial temprano) presenta una elevada concentración en superficie de escorias de metalurgia, relacionadas con los procesos de beneficio del cobre. El...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Freund. Daron Duke. Erin Eichenberg. Lucas Johnson. David Thomas.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster concerns the Tule Springs Archaeological Site (79001461/26CK4) in Clark County, Nevada, and new analyses of the obsidian flake discovered there in 1933. The importance of the flake rests in its then-postulated association with the fossil remains of extinct Pleistocene megafauna and the long-term research endeavors that have happened since....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Luze.

The Anthropology collections at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) have a long history of treatment with pesticides and contact with other materials that contain potentially hazardous elements. When the NMNH Repatriation Office began to use portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) technology, it focused on identifying potentially hazardous elements on archaeology, ethnology, and physical anthropology collections. If identified, the Repatriation Office attempted to determine the source of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Eeckhout. Kusi Colonna-Preti.

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 2014 to 2018, we excavated Building B15, a small temple decorated with mural paintings at the archaeological site of Pachacamac. These are the first paintings discovered on the site since 1938. On the walls, as on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lawrence Todd. Rachel Reckin.

This is an abstract from the "New Multidisciplinary Research at 48PA551: A Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) Site in Northwest Wyoming" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In comparison to other Archaic sites in the eastern portions of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), the Dead Indian Creek site (48PA551) has an unusually high number of obsidian projectile points (N=29). Geochemical source characterization of 23 of the 48PA551 obsidian points...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Bergmann. Robert H. Tykot.

Peru is commonly known for having the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, but comparatively little is known about the subsistence practices of the pre-Inca communities that existed in the inland valley of Chincha during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1476). The Chinchas formed a powerful socio-economic entity within the Chincha Kingdom in part of the southern region of Peru nearest to the Pacific Ocean. Our research tests the hypothesis that individuals relied more heavily on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey R. Ferguson.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past few decades, the increasing use of compositional studies of archaeological materials has dramatically enhanced our knowledge of the past, but as the diversity and availability of analytical techniques increases it is necessary to understand all of the variables involved in the choice of analytical method. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Wright.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of a study that uses x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to examine European glass trade beads from the Chickasawhay Creek Sites (22KE630 & 22KE718) in Kemper County, Mississippi. Together, these two sites present a unique opportunity to examine Choctaw ethnogenesis. Although a combination of archaeological and ethnohistorical research has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellery Frahm.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1983, an advertisement for a Tracor X-ray spectrometer proclaimed that "the world of XRF will never be the same again" thanks to an integrated microcomputer that "takes the confusion out of instrumental analysis." It was an exaggeration that this model offered "mistake-proof" XRF, but the point is that this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendan Weaver. Nicola Sharratt.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Botijas were the universal packaging for dry and liquid goods transported throughout the global Iberian empires of the Early Modern world. Heirs to the potting traditions of Mediterranean amphorae, these vessels are the most ubiquitous ceramics at Spanish colonial sites in the Americas. We present new research combining stylistic analysis and Portable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefano Biagetti.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pastoralism is now recognized as a smart economy for food production in drylands, especially in the current scenario of climate change, where natural resource variability is increasing globally. Outdated stereotypes about the inefficiency and irrationality of pastoralism are being reevaluated, and there is a shift in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Holyoke. Branden Rizzuto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Carboniferous Chert Geoarchaeological Survey (CCGS) was initiated in 2019 in order to identify and characterize the distribution of geological occurrences of Carboniferous-aged cherts in New Brunswick, Canada, and, to better understand the archaeological exploitation of those lithic materials. Initial fieldwork associated with the CCGS sought to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luke Stroth. Rebekah Truhan. Jacob Foubert.

This paper applies the chaîne opératoire analytical framework to hearth maintenance behavior. There are distinct phases of production involved in creating and maintaining a hearth, as new hearthstones are introduced, exhausted, and discarded. These stages may be identified through spatial distribution of new and exhausted hearthstones. The authors argue that these stages may also be identified geochemically. We use pXRF to compare a series of experimental burnings to those from a hearth feature...

DOCUMENT Citation Only E. Cory Sills. Heather McKillop.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Paynes Creek Salt Works were an ancient Maya Classic Period (A.D. 300-900) salt industry located in a shallow salt water lagoon in southern Belize. The rise of the Paynes Creek Salt Works mirrored the growth in population at inland communities during the Late Classic Period (A. D. 600-900) where salt—a basic biological necessity—was scarce. The demand for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Kebler. Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich.

Slip, a fluid suspension of clay that is applied to the surface of a piece of ceramic, allows for increased control over the functional and aesthetic properties of the finished vessel. The potter can select a slip to provide a more appealing color, texture, and/or luster to the vessel’s surface, while maintaining the favorable functional qualities of the paste.While slip color has long been used as an attribute for classification in the Maya lowlands, only recently have the raw materials of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Hurst.

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dissemination of wall paintings from the Late Preclassic period Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala, have focused on the in situ north and west walls of the buried chamber named Sub-1A. In contrast to their excellent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendra McCabe. William Billeck.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Small drawn white beads are ubiquitous throughout archaeological sites in the United States but historically provided little chronological information due to their uniform appearance. Portable X-ray fluorescence provides a nondestructive means of determining relative amounts of elements used in glass bead opacifying agents. This study tested the chemical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brooks Lawler.

Archaeologists have had difficulty agreeing upon uniform designations of certain kinds of toolstone that are not easily distinguishable visually. There are occasions when the archaeological definition of toolstone material and the geological definition of the same toolstone material do not match. A situation where this discrepancy might arise is when archaeologists give a more specific name to a cryptocrystalline silicate that is difficult to identify based on visual analysis. An understanding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Huckell.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The role of obsidian in Clovis technological organization in the US Southwest and northwestern Mexico is investigated. The distribution and typology of obsidian artifacts from excavated sites as well as surface contexts is reviewed. Projectile points appear to be the principal, and nearly only, tool for which obsidian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cyrus Banikazemi.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This preliminary study explores how pigments were sourced and manufactured in the Moquegua valley of southern Peru. The ethnohistoric and archaeological records provide ample evidence of the economic, religious, and social significance of colors and pigments in the pre-Columbian Andean world; however, there currently exists little...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilee Witte. Emily Schach. Donna Nash.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rescue excavations conducted at the Terminal Terrestre site in Moquegua, Peru recovered a diverse collection of complete ceramic vessels representing several styles dating to Terminal Middle Horizon (900-1100 CE), Late Intermediate period (1100-1400 CE), and Late Horizon (1400-1532 CE). Through the use of portable X-Ray...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcie Venter. Sean Carr. Shayna Lindquist.

Several Pre-Classic assemblages in the Mesoamerican Gulf lowlands are characterized by obsidian from the Guadalupe Victoria source. Tools produced are characterized by flake-core reduction strategies. The combined visual characteristics of the source material and technology employed are important chronological indicators. But, general similarities in the appearance of the raw material and factors such as variable thickness create the potential for overlap with other sources, such as Pico de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Khori Newlander. Linda Zuniga.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Compositional analyses are commonplace in prehistoric archaeology. For example, lithic and pottery analysts regularly use geochemical methods to acquire mineralogical and chemical data that allow them to source artifacts. The geographic patterning of sourced artifacts provides archaeologists with a rich dataset from which they infer seasonal procurement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diego Matadamas-Gomora. Jason Nesbitt. Rodolfo Aguilar Tapia. Leonardo López Luján. Tatsuya Murakami.

This is an abstract from the "2024 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Luis Barba" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Compositional analyses are fundamental in modern archaeological research. Recently, the introduction of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) equipment has motivated an even greater interest in integrating chemical composition and provenance studies of raw materials as one of the primary objectives in archaeological projects....