History in the Lab

Hi-tech history presents the concept that scientific methods designed to be used for other types of analysis can also be used to help archaeologists interpret their sites. New technologies are always being developed and offer exciting ways to learn more about the past.

Artifact conservation in action: A desiccator jar with an iron object in treatment is kept at very low relative humidity to drive out all moisture before applying a protective coating that will help protect it from future corrosion.

Artifact conservation in action: An 18th-century slip-decorated redware bowl is mended using special glue that was developed by conservation scientists. It will last a very long time and is easy to undo. The sherds were excavated at a site called Littletown Quarter in the area where Busch Gardens now stands.

The video section on conservation emphasizes the identification aspect of artifact conservation using a piece of armor excavated at Jordan’s Journey near Hopewell as an example.

Trace element analysis: An instrumental analysis technique called proton-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) determines the trace elements in copper tube beads from the Jamestown colony and a nearby Virginia Indian site called Paspahegh. The results showed that the Paspaheghs almost completely replaced their existing copper trade network and instead started trading for copper brought over from England by the English colonists.

Blood residue analysis: Techniques developed in the field of biology and crime investigation allow us to identify what animal blood or tissue sample (protein) came from. These “blood-serum” procedures have now been refined so they can be applied to very tiny, extremely old samples. Proteins age in a particular way that makes them hard to destroy, so traces of them may still be present on stone tools that are thousands of years old. By examining this blood residue on the tools we can determine what animals the Native Americans hunted.

The video features the use of this technique on stone tools from Cactus Hill in Suffolk County, the earliest archaeological site so far discovered in Virginia. The deepest levels at Cactus Hill date to roughly 16,000 years ago. Blood residue tests were conducted on artifacts used by the "Clovis" people who lived at the site a few thousand years later. In addition to rabbit and deer, a positive for “bovine” indicated that bison or musk-ox were in Virginia more than 11,000 years ago.

Radiocarbon dating: Just about the first question any archaeologist wants to know about a site is “how old is it?” There are many techniques for dating historic materials, but prehistoric sites are much harder to date. One of the major achievements in this area in the 20th century is the discovery and gradual refinement of the technique called radiocarbon dating. It only works on organic (once living) materials like charcoal or bone. Its basic principle involves radioactivity, and its practice involves elaborate scientific equipment. The sample is refined into pure carbon from which the amount of a single isotope, carbon-14, is counted using a machine similar to a Geiger counter.

The video uses as its example the dating of the Brook Run site near Culpeper. Brook Run is a quarry site where jasper, a stone used by early Virginia Indians to make stone tools, was mined. Since there were few finished tools present to help establish a date, the presence of fire pits with enough charcoal to run radiocarbon dates was crucial in determining that it was in fact a “Paleoindian” site 9,000 to 11,000 years ago.

 

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This student watches a video that explains new technologies in archaeology and artifact conservation. .






An analysis of copper tube beads found at Jamestown shows that the Indians replaced their own copper with the copper brought to Virginia by the English settlers.






By examining blood residue on excavated tools, archaeologists can discover what animal groups the Native Americans hunted.




Scientific analysis is important because, as this video explains, "direct observation can only tell us so much."