Establishing the Elemental Analysis Facility: Reflections on 20 Years of Research

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community " session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum has advanced research projects in archaeological chemistry to study research on trade and exchange, examine craft production, and assess the nature of archaeological materials. Established in 2004, the EAF is housed in one of the world’s great natural history museums, and its labs promote research not only on museum collections but also on objects from collaborating institutions and researchers. Applications from techniques including laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) and portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) have been instrumental in this work. Collaborative projects have ranged from explorations of glass bead production and exchange to sourcing earthenware ceramics and developing portable laser ablation systems. Dozens of publications and large databases have been built, the latter of which provide for large-scale comparative analysis of exchange systems on continental scales. In this paper, we highlight the efforts to establish the EAF in 2004 and the funding models and structural framework that has led to its success.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37992.0