Introduction to the LBNL Nuclear Archaeology Databse

Upon his retirement in 2005, Dr. F. Asaro of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Nuclear Archaeology (Archaeometry) program transfered all records of the LBNL archaeometry program to the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory. These records include all paperwork, compositional data, photographs, professional correspondence, and microfiche generated by the LBNL archaeometry program from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

The archaeometry program at LBNL included analyses of archaeological material from across the world with a particular focus on the Mediterannean and the Near East. The group also analyzed archaeological a limited number of samples from Africa, North America, and South America. The entire database is estimated to contain approximately 12,000 samples of pottery, obsidian, and beads as well as some geological samples analyzed at the lab.

Additional information concerning the history and research of the LBNL program can be found in an article written by Drs. Asaro and Adan-Bayewitz published in volume 49 of the international journal Archaeometry.

"The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory pottery provenance group developed standards and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) methods that are used at many archaeometry laboratories around the world. The background and development of ‘Standard Pottery’ and of methods for INAA are described. Early pottery provenance studies are described, and other research programmes, involving obsidian and magmatic mixing, the origin of the stone used for the Colossi of Memnon, and the ‘Plate of Brass’, are mentioned. Research work by the Laboratory included the discovery of the world-wide iridium anomaly and extensive subsequent research on what has come to be known as the ‘Asteroid Impact Theory’. Characteristics of the analytical programme for pottery provenance work, including overall aims, precision and accuracy, intercalibration, and irradiation and measurement protocols, are discussed. New research areas developed in the past 15 years, to broaden the usefulness of chemical compositional data for archaeological investigation, and examples of recent work, are described. This research, which makes use of high-precision X-ray fluorescence analysis in addition to INAA measurements on sample splits, includes distinguishing the products of different workshops located at the same production site, studies on the significance of the distribution of silver in archaeological pottery and the use of high-precision chemical compositional data as an aid for making chronological distinctions."

Asaro, F. and Adan-Bayewitz, D.
(2007)   The History of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis Programme for Archaeological and Geological Materials. Archaeometry 49(2): 201–214.

The LBNL Nuclear Archaeology group (Drs. I. Perlman and F. Asaro and H. Michel) and B. Holtzman of the UC-Berkeley Department of Anthropology in 1968. Photograph courtesy of the LBNL Image Library Historical Image Library.