Improving Access to Coordinated Archaeometric Services, Method Development and Post-Analysis Data Validation and Interpretation

爱达荷州立大学考古、材料和应用光谱学中心（CAMAS）为考古、古环境和地球化学科学领域的研究人员提供分析元素、同位素和微尺度成像工具。自2008年成立以来，该中心已完成了400多个新颖研究项目的分析，其中包括ISU的教师和学生研究人员，国内和国际学术研究合作以及基于费用的合同分析。该合同将为CAMAS的仪器升级提供支持，并为考古学和其他多个研究领域的广泛研究人员提供服务。这样收集的数据，除了提供对过去行为的洞察之外，还有可能通过提供对当今环境的更精确的描述并将其设置为扩展的时间框架来解决当今的环境问题。在物源分析、古气候重建、生物分子考古等方面，致力于成为地区公认的具有学科优势的考古实验室。这项研究任务的隐含意义是让研究人员可以使用这些技术，而不管他们是否有能力支付考古服务。CAMAS被设想为一个基于用户的设施，这意味着鼓励个别研究人员自己进行仪器分析，并在CAMAS工作人员和研究人员的指导下参与数据收集、简化和解释。目前，CAMAS通过与研究、政府和商业客户签订收费合同来抵消补贴分析的成本。该奖项将增加CAMAS为研究人员提供的机会，通过获得综合技术，启动访问研究人员计划，并为研究生提供培训机会，使其成为生成数据的专家用户和解释者。资金将用于支持广泛材料的分析工作，从考古石器和陶瓷，沉积物和残留物到骨骼和牙齿，并将使考古学家，地质学家和法医科学家的专业知识参与分析结果的解释。具体来说，该奖项为设备升级和维护（pXRF和SEM-EDS）提供资金，购买紧凑、高灵敏度的FTIR，用于构建矩阵匹配分析标准的工具和试剂，以及促进补贴分析、研究设计、方法开发、实验后数据验证和考古解释的全面访问研究员计划。

The Center for Archaeology, Materials and Applied Spectroscopy (CAMAS) at Idaho State University provides analytical elemental, isotopic and micro-scale imaging tools to researchers in the archaeological, paleoenvironmental and geochemical sciences.Since its inception in 2008, the center has completed analysis for over 400 novel research Projects: these include faculty and student researchers at ISU, national and international academic research collaborations and fee-based contract analysis. This award will provide support to upgrade CAMAS' instrumentation and to make its services available to a wide range of researchers in archaeology and multiple other areas of research. The data thus collected, in addition to offering insight into past behaviors have the potential to address current day environmental issues by providing more precise characterizations of present day environments and setting these into an extended chronological framework. CAMAS has endeavored to position itself as a regionally-recognized archaeometry laboratory with disciplinary strengths in provenance analysis, paleoclimatic reconstruction and biomolecular archaeology. Implicit in this research mission is to make these technologies available to researchers regardless of their ability to pay for archaeometric services. CAMAS was envisioned as a user-based facility,meaning that individual researchers are encouraged to perform the instrumental analyses themselves and participate in data collection, reduction and interpretation under the mentoring of CAMAS staff and research personnel. Presently, CAMAS offsets the cost of subsidized analysis with fee-based contracts from research, governmental and commercial clientele. This award will increase the opportunities that CAMAS can provide to researchers, through acquisition of integrative technologies, initiation of a visiting researcher program and provision of training opportunities for graduate students to become expert users and interpreters of generated data. Funding will support analytical work with a broad range of materials, from archaeological lithics and ceramics, sediments and residues to bones and teeth, and will bring the expertise of archaeologists, geologists and forensic scientists to bear on the interpretation of analytical results. Specifically this award provides funding for equipment upgrade and maintenance (pXRF and SEM-EDS), acquisition of a compact, high-sensitivity FTIR, tools and reagents for constructing matrix-matched analytical standards, and a comprehensive visiting researcher program promoting subsidized analysis, research design, method development, and post-experiment data validation and archaeological interpretation.