Laboratory Support Award: Optical Emission Spectrometer for the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Drs. T. Douglas Price and James H. Burton will use support from the National Science Foundation to replace the primary scientific instrument in the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The lab will purchase a new, state-of-the-art Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES). ICP spectroscopy has been highly productive in the laboratory and responsible for the research activities of many established, as well as promising, scientists. An in-house analytical instrument is essential in basic research and the training of new scientists. In addition to the instrument, the award will provide for some remodeling of the laboratory to accommodate the installation of the new instrument and upgrade the facility. Since its acquisition in 1988, the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry has produced instrumental data that has resulted in hundreds of publications by laboratory staff and students in edited volumes, scientific literature, and as books, theses, and dissertations. Numerous other secondary publications have been generated by these results as well as presentations by students and staff at local, national, and international venues. The scientific instruments in the lab have also been the principal tools for instructional activity in archaeological chemistry, both for classroom use and for many independent studies by students at the University of Wisconsin, students from other universities, high-school students, and various scholars and professional colleagues from other institutions both here and abroad. The previous ICP spectrometer in the lab was essential for the establishment of the facility as an internationally recognized center for the study of archaeological chemistry. The new instrument should allow the center to maintain and expand the efforts of the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry.The National Science Foundation support will allow continued investigation of a wide variety of archaeological materials and anthropological remains and to develop new methods of inquiry. Archaeological chemistry is an exceptionally exciting field where new methods and new discoveries are opening windows and doors on the human past by producing information thought unknowable until recently. Most of the major future discoveries in archaeology will come from laboratories. Studies of trace elements in food chains, and subsequent isotope studies, for example, have generated new approaches of study of both modern and prehistoric animal mobility and diet, approaches that have proven useful in other fields such as animal ecology. In addition to traditional research, the team will explore and develop new analytical methods of inquiry, the fruits of which cannot be assessed a priori, but the track record of the past two decades indicates that their value is inestimable. Scientific instrumentation is the key to success in such investigations. Basic research in laboratories and the training of future scientists are primary goals in the growth and development of this field.