Dr. Glascock Receives the Fryxell Award at 2009 SAA Meeting

On April 24, 2009, Dr. Michael D. Glascock received the 2009 Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Research at the 74th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Atlanta, GA. The annual award is presented in recognition of the individual's contributions to American Archaeology in one of five distinct areas: zoological sciences, botanical sciences, earth sciences, physical sciences, and interdisciplinary studies. The award cycles through these five categories, and for 2009 it was an award for interdisciplinary research. In addition to a special symposium in the recipient's honor, the award consists of a plaque and a medallion.

Analyses at MURR Featured on the Texas Beyond History Web Site

This five-section exhibit highlights findings from a small stream-side campsite, named Varga, in Edwards County near the edge of the Balcones Escarpment.  Over a roughly 6,000-year period, hunting and gathering peoples periodically returned to this seemingly inhospitable environment to acquire a variety of resources for their food, shelter and tools.  Traces of their camps were preserved in flood deposits over time, and these remains were uncovered by archeologists after a modern flood destroyed the highway crossing over the creek.

The different technical analyses conducted on material from Varga are highlighted. A considerable amount of detail about the methods used in these studies is provided in order to show that it is not a simple process to extract meaningful information from the bits and pieces recovered from archeological sites.  This is an attempt to answer the frequently asked question, How do you know that?

The exhibit was written by Mike Quigg and Paul Matchen of TRC Environmental Corporation of Austin.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) sponsored the archeological investigations and also this exhibit as a public education outreach component of that work.

[Proceed to the Texas Beyond History Web Site]

Edited Volume on Archaeometry Appears in North American Archaeologist

A recent volume of the professional journal North American Archaeologist (distributed by Baywood Publishing Company) contains papers presented in a MURR-sponsored symposium at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Eastern States Archaeological Federation. Matthew T. Boulanger, Research Specialist at the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory, organized the session and served as guest editor along with Roger W. Moeller for the published volume. The papers contained in the volume discuss recent research concerning archaeological projects eastern North America. The volume is available in print, as well as in digital form (to registered individuals or institutions) by clicking here. Titles and abstracts of all the papers presented in the session are available on the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory's Web site by clicking here.

Bridget Alex Wins Honorable Mention at the 2009 SAA Annual Meeting

Bridget Alex, a graduate of Dartmouth College with double majors in Chemistry and Anthropology received an honorable mention in the R.E. Taylor Student Poster Competition sponsored by The Society for Archaeological Sciences at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bridget is a former intern at the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory, and her poster presented results from her study of Early and Middle Formative Period pottery from the Basin of Mexico conducted in collaboration with Dr. Deborah Nichols. Bridget plans to attend graduate school at Harvard University in the Fall of 2009, where she will pursue an advanced degree in anthropology.

Recent Research Concerning the Olmec

An important article by Blomster, Neff & Glascock appeared in an issue of Science (February 18, 2005) describing some of our recent findings regarding the early Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica. Another group of authors criticized our research with a pair of articles appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Please be aware that their opinions are NOT the final word on this subject. First, we challenged them to send us their samples for analysis completely free of charge – but, they refused to acknowledge our offer.

Ultimately, two lengthy articles were written for the journal Latin American Antiquity responding to their criticisms and providing further evidence supporting the findings in our initial article. The articles were published in the Spring 2006 issue of Latin American Antiquity. Please read ALL of the facts and decide for yourself which side is more credible. If you are interested in reading a popular article concerning this debate, with accompanying pictures, visit the University of Missouri's Illumination magazine and look for an article entitled the "Olmec Imbroglio."

R. S. Popelka-Filcoff Joins NIST

Dr. Rachel S. Popelka-Filcoff recently graduated with her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Missouri–Columbia. As a graduate student in the Archaeometry Laboratory, she worked on the elemental characterization of obsidian, ceramics and ochre. She developed methods for the elemental analysis (NAA and XRF) and study of ochre, and contributed to the development and evaluation of a portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (PXRF). She is now a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where she is working on implementing the k0-INAA method at the NCNR (NIST Center for Neutron Research).

R. J. Speakman Joins the Smithsonian

Mr. Robert J. Speakman has moved to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC where he is the Director of Technical Studies for the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute. His last day of work for the Archaeometry Lab at MURR was October 31, 2006, and we wish him success in his well-deserved new position.

2007 SAA Posters Available in PDF Format

The Archaeometry Lab and the Society for Archaeological Sciences co-sponsored two poster sessions at the 2007 SAA Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. More information about these sessions and downloadable PDFs of the presentations can be found here.

Planned Session at 2007 ESAF Meeting to Focus on Analytical Methods

Matthew T. Boulanger of the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory has organized a session for the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Eastern States Archaeological Federation conference hosted by the Vermont Archaeological Society in Burlington, Vermont. The session will highlight recent advancements in analytical techniques as applied to the archaeological record of eastern North America. A full listing of planned presentations is available here.

Dr. Leslie G. Cecil Awarded NSF Grant to Study Postclassic Maya Pottery

Former MURR post-doctoral fellow Dr. Leslie G. Cecil was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a three-year study of Postclassic Maya pottery. Dr. Cecil's planned research will involve analysis of pottery by several techniques including neutron activation analysis to be conducted at the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory. You may read the full announcement of this prestigious award on the NSF Web page by clicking here.

Wesley Stoner Conducting Internship at MURR

Wes is a doctoral candidate from the University of Kentucky, who is visiting the MURR Archaeometry Lab on a short internship. He just returned from southern Veracruz where he conducted a regional survey of 120 square kilometers in the Tepango River valley. The general objective of this research is to reconstruct political, economic, and social interaction between the Tepango Valley settlements and those who resided in the neighboring Catemaco Valley during the Classic period (AD 300-1000). As part of his research, Wes is currently conducting instrumental neutron activation analysis and petrographic analysis of a sample of Coarse Orange ceramic jars to find whether or not they were exchanged between valleys. This data will potentially help explain the rise of the large regional center Matacapan, who specialized in manufacturing Coarse Orange jars. Wes's master's thesis shows that Matacapan were exchanging these jars to sites within the Catemaco Valley. However, his current research focuses on another large site named El Picayo in the Tepango River Valley. El Picayo would have been a significant threat to Matacapan's power in the region, and the nature of interaction (economic, political, and social) between these two important centers is the key to understanding the cultural evolution of the entire region.

Neill Wallis Conducting Internship at MURR

Neill is a doctoral candidate from the University of Florida who is visiting the MURR Archaeometry Lab on a short internship. His research is focused on the history of interaction among Woodland period (ca. 3000-1000 BP) populations on the Atlantic coast of Florida and Georgia. Sites in this region show evidence of consistent social contact across a variety of geographic distances. The most ubiquitous and convincing data come from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, implicated in interactions across much of the Eastern Woodlands. Many designs on Swift Creek sherds have been identified as "paddle matches", that is, two or more different vessels that were stamped with the same carved wooden paddle and sometimes separated by hundreds of kilometers. While hundreds of paddle matches have been identified and some preliminary patterns have been observed, explaining precisely how designs were disseminated across the landscape is an unresolved question. Proposed explanations include group residential mobility, post-marital residence patterns, and circulation of pots and their contents. These scenarios may pertain to some Swift Creek contexts, but on the Atlantic coast, site-specific trends in the technology, function, and use of vessels indicates that exchange may have been specifically linked to mounds and mortuary ceremony. Using instrumental neutron activation analysis and petrography, Neill will assess the chemical and mineralogical variability of pottery among 15 sites to test various models of Swift Creek interaction. Ultimately, this research will help explain the fluorescence of complicated stamped pottery and its relationship to broad patterns of interaction and exchange across the Woodland period Eastern Woodlands.

L. G. Cecil Joins Stephen F. Austin State University

Dr. Leslie Cecil, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the MURR Archaeometry Laboratory, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology, Gerontology, and Anthropology at Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, TX). Each semester she will teach Cultural Anthropology and a variety of archaeology courses such as Prehistoric North America and Introduction to Archaeology. Every other summer, Dr. Cecil will be conducting a field school in Texas that will concentrate on local prehistoric and historic period Texas archaeology. In addition to her teaching duties, she will be responsible for the Archaeology Laboratory at SFASU and will continue her research in Guatemala.

Shawn Fehrenbach Conducting Internship at MURR

Shawn Fehrenbach is a M.A. candidate at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa studying the archaeology of mainland Southeast Asia. He is visiting the MURR Archaeometry Lab on a summer internship to conduct compositional analysis using neutron activation on ceramics from the site of Angkor Borei in southern Cambodia. This work is a component of his broader thesis research, which is examining variability and continuity in ceramic technological traditions during the Early Historic period (ca. 500 BC – AD 500) at Angkor Borei. Complex socio-political systems referred to as the region's earliest states first developed in Southeast Asia during the early centuries of the first millennium AD (toward the end of the Early Historic period). The Mekong Delta, where Angkor Borei is located, was an important region in these developments. In studying these ceramics, Shawn hopes to build deeper understanding of the social and economic conditions surrounding ceramic production at this site and their relation to emergent complexity more broadly in the region. Variability in the attributes of ceramics can be viewed as the material consequences of technical choices made by the producers and consumers of ceramics in the past. These choices were both influenced by and could potentially themselves influence the social, political, cultural, and economic conditions within which these people acted. Assessing locality of production (local vs. non-local ceramics) and technological variability within and between established ware types will provide a perspective on the ways in which economic and social interactions at this site were changing or persisting during this critical period. [Visit Shawn's Web site]

Bridget Alex Conducting Internship at MURR

Visiting the MURR Archaeometry Lab on a summer internship, Bridget is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College double majoring in Chemistry and Anthropology. For her senior Chemistry thesis, she is characterizing potsherds from the Teotihuacán Valley in Central Mexico by three analytical techniques. The sherds were collected from a region that has held the capitals of today's state, the Aztec empire, and Teotihuacán, the largest and most influential Early Classic city in Mesoamerica. Despite the valley's enduring prominence, little is certain about its early regional interactions and breadth of influence. Bridget's research hopes to temper these unknowns by investigating the development of exchange systems in the Basin of Mexico during the region's Early and Middle Formative Period, approximately 1800–900 BC and 900–500 BC, respectively. The project has a duel objective of answering cultural and methodological questions. For the latter goal, Bridget will compare neutron activation analysis, performed at MURR, to laser-ablation ICP-MS and petrography performed at her home institution. Ideally the results will offer consistent characterizations of the sherds, which will be used to infer potential trade relations.