50 research outputs found
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Ancient Lessons For Desert Farming
This item is part of the Arizona Land and People (formerly Progressive Agriculture in Arizona) archive. It was digitized from a physical copy provided by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at The University of Arizona. For more information about this periodical, please email CALS Publications at [email protected]
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Evaluating the variability of ceramics with x-ray fluorescence
Our assessment of prehistoric trade in ceramics depends on our ability to identify and distinguish different sources of manufacture. For the American Southwest, archaeologists have proposed various models of ceramic manufacture and exchange. Until recently, conflicting hypotheses were tested mainly on the basis of petrographic analysis of nonplastic tempering materials. We have extended these analyses to include x-ray fluorescence (XRF). XRF provides a fast and inexpensive means of analyzing large numbers of samples. Since 1982, approximately 500 prehistoric sherds and 40 prepared clay and mineral samples have been examined with XRF. Multivariate statistical techniques have been applied to help identify groupings of samples with possible archaeological significance