Using PXRF technology to aid in the recovery and analysis of human remains

Summary

Excavation and analysis of human remains from the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (MCIG) provided an opportunity to test the effectiveness of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) as both a field and laboratory tool. During the fieldwork portion of the project, excavations exposed soils that visual inspection suggested might harbor a concentration of toxic materials. PXRF was used on site to determine the nature of the potential toxins and determine the risk factor associated with continued excavation. Subsequent laboratory analysis used the pXRF analyzer in two separate instances. First, elemental composition of excavated soil samples was identified to determine background levels of soil constituents that might produce diagenetic changes in human skeletal remains. Second, the MCIG excavations recovered 77 instances of commingled human remains representing multiple individuals. This paper reports the results of a pilot study to use pXRF as an aid in identifying commingled bones from MCIG interments as belonging to specific individuals.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• People that no one had use for, had nothing to give to, no place to offer: The Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery

Keywords

Spatial Coverage