A Brief History of Archaeological Chemistry

Data is another term that is used widely with many meanings and applications. To most people, data means numbers, but in fact data includes many kinds of information including text and images. Data is a plural word, to emphasize the fact that they are multiple kinds of information - i.e., these data are important. 

Laboratory records are kept very carefully in order to follow the progress of any study and to be able to repeat any steps that are necessary. Detailed records include all the information about samples, preparation methods, analysis results, and storage. These records provide the documentation necessary to prove that the research was done and how it was completed. All of this information together is data and there are two major places these data are kept a notebook and computer database. The Laboratory Notebook is an essential part of lab activities and the first record of all information. A laboratory notebook is needed to explain lab procediues, write down all lab data, show how calculations are made, and discuss the results of an experiment. A record of lab work is an important document, which will show the quantity and quality of the lab work that you have done. The laboratory database is the digital archive of information from the activities, experiments, and measurements of the laboratory. 

Although it is hard to believe, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most people did not know that the earth and their ancestors had a deep past in time. Church dogma dictated that the earth had been created in 4004 bc. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, when natural scientists discovered the association of human artifacts with the bones of extinct animals, that an acceptance of human antiquity took root. Archaeology became an academic discipline only toward the end of the nineteenth century. Archaeology as a profession is less than 150 years old. 

A combination of these two fields, archaeological chemistry also has a significant 

The first half of the twentieth century saw a series of new studies, often using technologies that resulted from the military research driven by world wars. The introduction of instrumental methods such as optical emission spectroscopy (OES) initiated several major research programs concerned with the origins of bronze in Europe. The new instruments meant a large number of samples could be measured. Thousands of bronze objects in Europe were analyzed in these studies (e.g., Caley 1964 Junghans et al. 1960). 

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The third section of this chapter, A Brief History of Archaeological Chemistry, is intended to place the field in the context of its past. This history helps to better understand how such studies got to the place they are today and what is important and new in the field. The fourth and final section concerns Laboratories, the home bases of archaeological chemistry and the folks in white lab coats. We provide an impression of what such labs are like and how they are used. Within this section we offer a detailed description of our own home, the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Let s get started. 

A brief history of archaeological chemistry is provided in order to give a sense... 

Wells, E. C. (2004), A brief history of archaeological soil chemistry, Newsletter Int. Union of Soil Sci. Soil Sci. Soc. America 11, 2-4. 

We have designed the book so that the reader is introduced to the instrumental study of archaeological materials in steps. We begin with vocabulary and concepts, followed by a short history of archaeological chemistry to place such studies in perspective. We provide a brief survey of laboratories that do such studies. An important chapter considers what archaeologists want to know about the past. These questions guide research in archaeological chemistry. 

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