Chemical analysis of archaeological materials

Sampling archaeological materials for analytical purposes may somehmes be the most difficult stage in an analytical procedure (Bellhouse 1980 Cochran 1977). Since rock, ceramics, and cement are heterogeneous materials, obtaining a representative sample of them may be the most difficult step in a whole analytical procedure. 

The nature and the relative amounts in which the components of materials have to be detected in different analytical studies varies greatly from the identification and determination of the few major elements that make up a material, to the wide range, often in almost vanishing concentrations, of impurities. From a practical point of view and regardless of the objective of, or the type of information required from an analysis, most analytical procedures entail a sequence of three main operations  

Analyzing and determining the nature of the constituents of the sample and their relative amounts 

If the material sampled Is made up of particles of different sizes, the large and small particles should be sampled separately and in the respective proportions in which they are present in the bulk. Moreover, each sample should contain as many particles as possible. 

A wide range of analytical techniques are today available for identifying and characterizing materials (Hancock 2000). Some, known as qualitative techniques, are designed to provide information only on the nature of the components of materials, that is, which components, elements, and/or compounds, make up a material (Masterton and Slowinski 1986). Most often, however, it is also essential to disclose precisely how much of each particular component there is in a material, and thus to reveal its exact composition. Such information is derived using quantitative techniques (Harris 2002 Jeffery et al. 1989). 

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Cholesterol, 2 104 10 804-805 ascorbic acid and, 25 767-768, 769 chemical analysis of archaeological materials, 5 749... 

Although chemical analysis of archaeological materials for purposes of identification and provenance is now well established, there are still many challenges ahead for the inorganic chemist in archaeology. The field of lead... 

The Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, founded in 1987, is a center for research and training in the chemical analysis of archaeological materials, one of a few such facilities in the USA. The laboratory and its continuing operation are made possible by grants from the US... 

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