Exploration in portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) applications to zooarchaeology

Summary

Current research in portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) applications for archaeological research constantly attempts to push the boundaries of what this technology can accomplish. Although research involving lithics, glass, metals and ceramics remain the most common venues of investigation, bone has also become an innovative focus of inquiry. However, because it has been studied significantly less than these other forms of material culture there is still much that is unknown in terms of how certain elements become represented in bone, such as the relative abundance of elements that contributed to composition during life rather than uptake post-deposition. Fish bones from Betty’s Hope plantation provide a range of data that includes a variety of elemental representation, both naturally-occurring and not. This updated analysis will attempt to ascertain how certain elements become represented in archaeological bone samples both during life and post-depositionally.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Photons in the Field: New Approaches to the Use of Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) in Archaeological Fieldwork   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage