MRI: Acquisition of Laser Ablation for ICP-MS and a Handheld XRF for the W.M. Keck Center for Instrumental and Biochemical Comparative Archaeology, Millsaps College

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This award permits Drs. Michael Galaty, George Bey and Timothy Ward to add a laser ablation capability to an extant Varian 820 inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer and to purchase a handheld XRF spectrometer which can be used in field research. Both instruments will be housed in Millsap College's W. M. Keck Center for Instrumental and Biochemical Comparative Archaeology. The goal of the laboratory is to support interdisciplinary teams of faculty and undergraduate students in addressing complex archaeological questions using modern analytical instrumentation. The focus of the team's current research is to use biochemical and archaeometric science to provide new insight into comparative archaeology by developing new diachronic models of state formation in two Old and New World cultural systems: the Bronze-Age Illyrians of Albania (200 BC - AD 0) and the Formative Mayan cultures of Yucatan, Mexico (900 BC - AD 250). Because a systematic and interdisciplinary comparison of such Old and New World cultures has not yet been attempted, the research has the potential to yield significant contributions to understanding the development of complex societies. The question of when and why "states" formed in some places but not others, at some times but not others, is of broad scientific interest. One approach - the one taken here - is to compare factors affecting social complexity in two different regions, thereby enlightening the study of both. The requested instrumentation, in addition to that already in hand will provide a set of valuable analytic tools. It will, for example, be possible to characterize the basic chemical composition of a range of archaeological material such as pottery, chipped and ground stone and metal and also to determine trace-residues. This will allow the use of specific artifacts to be determined and their movement traced over space from source area to archaeological site. This will make it possible to reconstruct trade and related economic systems and thus determine a range of social factors commonly believed to be implicated in the rise of social complexity.The W. M. Keck Center serves an entirely undergraduate population at a small college that emphasizes engaged, "hands-on" learning. It has the potential to introduce large numbers of undergraduate students to the power of interdisciplinary field and laboratory research and the laboratory offers followships to further this goal. The instrumentation will improve the effectiveness of both research and education.