Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Capacity Building for Characterizing Plant Exudates: On Supporting the Resilience of Future Endeavors in Residue Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Plant Exudates and Other Binders, Adhesives, and Coatings in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential when it comes to characterizing plant exudates and other archaeological residues. But how do we push the ball forward and become confident that we are producing new insights into material culture from our work, especially at this time when collaboration has become severely complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and top-down austerity conditions in universities and museums? Assembling teams of people that span the disciplines of analytical chemistry, botany and ethnobotany, archaeology, anthropology, history, and conservation science is no easy task. Recent innovations in handheld and portable analytical instruments as well as minimally destructive/invasive technologies should help to produce pilot projects yielding meaningful results and to solidify efforts into long-term collaborations focused on plant exudates. One should not forget, though, that new tools alone cannot be leveraged without the proper personnel. I submit that the only reliable way to advance these goals is through the firm commitment by social science programs to in-house capacity building. There are different strategies to save money in purchasing equipment while gaining know-how, but there is no long-term substitute for paying people for their time. My experiences with *Schinus molle L. (source of aguaribay resin) and other anecdotes will serve as illustration!

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Plant Exudates and Other Binders, Adhesives, and Coatings in the Americas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32816