Expanding Opportunities for Collaborative Archaeometry Research at IIRMES, CSULB

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。加州州立大学长滩分校（CSULB）材料、环境和社会综合研究所（IIRMES）的一组考古学家和地质学家将利用美国国家科学基金会的资金支持对古代技术、经济互动、古代饮食和过去环境的研究。这些调查将通过一项外联计划实施，该计划将在合作的基础上向美国和国外的研究人员提供IIRMES的仪器和专业知识。IIRMES用于研究人类过去的仪器包括一台扫描电子显微镜，三台电感耦合等离子体质谱仪（ICP-MS），一台通过ICP-MS进行固体样品分析的激光烧蚀系统，一台稳定同位素比质谱仪和发光测年设备。目前的拨款将用于购买一台便携式x射线荧光光谱仪和一台碳、氢、氮、氧和硫元素分析仪。后一种仪器将作为稳定同位素比质谱仪的前端，因此可以在各种有机材料中确定稳定同位素比。合作研究人员通过两种方式参与IIRMES考古计划。首先，提交和接受一份简短的提案可以获得一个或多个IIRMES分析仪器的补贴分析资格。美国国家科学基金会的补贴支付了大部分的分析费用，合作研究人员为每个样本支付少量的耗材费用。对于希望或需要在分析工作中发挥更多实际作用的研究人员，可以获得全额补贴的短期访问研究员计划。该计划的参与者将在长滩度过一到三周的时间，在此期间，他们将与项目pi密切合作，生成和解释分析结果。在过去，访问研究员项目对从事硕士和博士论文的研究生特别有价值，因为他们可以获得实践经验，并将其带入未来的职业生涯。IIRMES的分析工作促进对史前和历史的理解的一个主要方式是通过确定石制工具原材料、陶瓷粘土和金属矿石的来源。一旦确定了来源，就可以通过比较发现地点与通过分析确定的生产地点来重建人类人口流动和经济相互作用的模式。虽然通过ICP-MS或XRF进行痕量元素分析是此类来源测定研究的标准方法，但稳定同位素可用于绿松石，海洋贝壳，骨头和象牙。稳定同位素比值在环境重建和饮食研究中也很有用。例如，沉积物岩心中碳-13的富集可以作为流域玉米和杂草种类增加的指示，从而为检查花粉研究的结果提供证据。与此同时，氧18的富集可以作为碳酸盐（如洞穴和贝壳）降雨变化的标志。碳和氮同位素被广泛用于人类骨骼和动物遗骸的古饮食研究。这个项目建立在共享分析资源的模式上，这种模式在过去的二十年里为考古学提供了很好的服务。在这种模式下，美国国家科学基金会考古计划部分资助那些长期致力于合作考古研究的实验室。有了国家科学基金会的资助，学术研究人员的分析费用就能负担得起了，因此，计划涉及足够大的样本量的分析工作，以解决重大的考古问题，就变得可行了。该项目还将对CSULB的当地研究和教育环境产生重要影响，CSULB是西海岸最大城市地区中心的指定西班牙裔服务机构。来自不同学院的CSULB学生将有机会在地质学、生物学、化学和考古学中使用最先进的分析仪器，并在一个或多个领域的研究项目中受益。对CSULB学生和访问研究人员的支持有助于将来自不同学科的研究人员纳入实验室，从而进一步推进IIRMES的跨学科使命。这种环境鼓励学生忽视可能限制他们科学创造力的学科界限。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).A team of archaeologists and geologists at the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environments, and Societies (IIRMES), California State University - Long Beach (CSULB) will use NSF funding to support research on ancient technology, economic interaction, ancient diets, and past environments. These investigations will be implemented through an outreach program that makes IIRMES instruments and expertise available on a collaborative basis to researchers from the US and abroad.IIRMES instruments used to study the human past include a scanning-electron microscope, three inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometers (ICP-MS), a laser ablation system for solid sample analysis via ICP-MS, a stable-isotope ratio mass spectrometer, and luminescence dating equipment. The current grant will fund purchase of a portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer and an elemental analyzer for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. The latter instrument will serve as a front-end for the stable-isotope ratio mass spectrometer, so that stable-isotope ratios can be determined in a variety of organic materials. Collaborating researchers participate in the IIRMES Archaeometry Program in two ways. First, submission and acceptance of a short proposal gains eligibility for subsidized analyses on one or more of IIRMES analytical instruments. The NSF subsidy pays for most of the costs of analysis, and the collaborating researchers pay a small per-sample cost for consumable supplies. For researchers who desire or need a more hands-on role in the analytical work, a fully subsidized short-term visiting researcher program is available. Participants in this program spend one to three weeks in Long Beach, during which they work closely with the project PIs in the generation and interpretation of analytical results. In the past, the visiting researcher program has been especially valuable for graduate students working on MA and Ph.D. theses, since they gain practical experience that they can take with them into their future professional careers.One major way in which analytical work at IIRMES promotes understanding of prehistory and history is through the determination of sources of stone-tool raw material, clays for ceramics, and metal ores. Once sources are identified, patterns of human-population movement and economic interaction can be reconstructed by comparing locations of discovery with the location of production determined via analysis. Although trace-element analysis via ICP-MS or XRF is the standard approach to such source-determination studies, stable isotopes can be useful for turquoise, marine-shell, bone, and ivory.Stable-isotope ratios are also useful in environmental reconstruction and dietary studies. For instance, enrichment of carbon-13 in a sediment core can be used as an indication of increasing maize and weedy species in a watershed, thus providing evidence to check the results of pollen studies. Oxygen-18 enrichment, meanwhile, can be a marker for rainfall variation in carbonates, such as speleothems and shells. And carbon and nitrogen isotopes are widely used in paleodietary studies of human bone and faunal remains.This project builds on a model of shared analytical resources that has served archaeology well during the past two decades. In this model, the NSF Archaeometry Program partially funds labs with demonstrated long-term commitments to collaborative archaeological research. With the NSF subsidy, analysis costs are much more affordable for academic researchers, so that it becomes practical to plan analytical efforts involving sample sizes large enough to address significant archaeological questions. The project will also have important impacts locally on the research and education environment at CSULB, a designated Hispanic-serving institution in the heart of the largest urban area on the west coast. Diverse CSULB students from departments in several colleges benefit from the opportunity to use state-of-the-art analytical instruments in geology, biology, chemistry, and archaeology, and in research projects that join one or more of these fields. Support for CSULB students and visiting researchers requested here helps populate the lab with committed researchers from a range of disciplines, which furthers IIRMES' interdisciplinary mission. This environment encourages students to ignore disciplinary boundaries that may restrict their scientific creativity.