Anthropology master's student Ned Gaines demonstrated flint knapping, a method for making stone tools, during a lab in MSE 257, one of the classes in the new Heritage Conservation Science Curriculum.
UA Heritage Conservation Science Research Projects
Professor Pamela Vandiver and her students and colleagues are working on several research projects. They include: These pottery sherds have Ru glazing.
• Chinese Ru Glazes — MSE student Alix Deymier and Vandiver are analyzing Ru glazes on Chinese Song Dynasty (10th to 12th century) imperial ceramics. "On this project, as with all such work, we are looking through a veil of weathering and working back through the technology to the raw materials," Vandiver says.
This involves interconnected processes that the researchers need to analyze and deconstruct. They need to understand the effects of materials corrosion and weathering, as well as the technology of how these things were made and used. Other factors include previous restoration efforts and the effects of long storage or burial at an archaeological site.
Alix Deymier is using the scanning electron microscope in UA's Materials Science and Engineering Department to study the microstructure of Ru glazes.
"Often, the samples we have to work with are tiny, measuring maybe 20 cubic microns, and we need to process these through several analytical tests," Vandiver says.
• Sitkyatki Pottery — Vandiver and MSE grad student Caitlin O’Grady, are studying a particularly elegant type of Hopi pottery, called "Sitkyatki polychrome." It's often called the "Porcelain of the Southwest."
To understand both the high-fired ceramic technology that created it and the factors that have caused it to be so well preserved, she is using the same analytical methodology she used with the Cambodian ceramics. This involves characterizing composition, microstructure and firing temperature of both the ceramic body and the four different colors of slip-glazes.
O'Grady will be using local materials to reproduce some parts of the firing process that are particularly difficult to understand and that require a nuanced, experimental approach.
• Glass Slags — MSE grad student Dan Jeffery is studying the behavioral similarities in glass slags that result from smelting several different types of metals. These include tin, copper, iron and lead. Even though the compositions and temperatures of the smelting processes are different, the slag viscosities may be similar.
For the tin and copper, he is modeling his studies on traditional technologies used in the second and third millennia B.C. at the Near Eastern sites of Goltepe in Turkey, Tell Feinan in Jordan and Timna in Israel.
For the iron, he is characterizing 17th century early Industrial Revolution slags from New England and Scotland.
For the lead, he is using slags produced by a new process being developed in England. It is designed extract lead when CRT and TV-screens are recycled.
Jeffrey has built traditional furnaces for smelting iron and copper and will be testing them in the next few weeks.
Both O’Grady and Jeffery have received Gutmann Foundation grants for conservation science research and recently have been awarded prestigious NSF IGERT one-year fellowships in archeological science.
• Laser Cleaning Technology — Vandiver also is collaborating with Associate Professor Kelly Potter, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on how to use lasers to clean old coatings from artifacts. In the 1950s, for instance, a soluble nylon was used to coat artifacts. Conservators now recognize that this can damage artifacts and that these nylon coatings need to be removed.
"We are looking at how the laser alters the composition of a material as the coating is removed," Vandiver says. "We're trying to find out what's happening at a molecular level. No one has ever done that. Instead, they've cleaned with a laser and said, 'OK, that looks right,' but we don't know if we're altering or damaging these artifacts until we really understand compositional and microstructural transformations."
Adam Grochowski is analyzing brick and mortar from Tucson's 18th century presidio wall and from the Old Adobe Brick Co. • Adobe Making — Vandiver and MSE student Adam Grochowski are analyzing brick and mortar from Tucson's 18th century presidio wall and from the Old Adobe Brick Co. to understand the differences and why these materials are different.
Some of the results from this work are being applied to analyzing ancient adobe bricks at the Chevelon and Homolovi sites in Northern Arizona. Vandiver and Grochowski are collaborating on this research with Lisa Gavioli, an archaeology grad student, and Professor Chuck Adams, curator of archaeology at the Arizona State Museum.
• A Greek Kiln — Vandiver and her students are working with Assistant Professor Eleni Hasaki, of the UA Classics Department. They're providing technical support for an effort to construct a wood-burning kiln. It's a replica of a Greek kiln used in the 4th century B.C.
• Tohono O'Odham Pottery — Vandiver also is working with Tohono O'Odhom potter and UA grad student Reuben Naranjo to better understand the traditional materials and techniques used for making pottery in the Tohono O'Odhom community near Tucson.
These pottery sherds have Ru glazing.
Alix Deymier is using the scanning electron microscope in UA's Materials Science and Engineering Department to study the microstructure of Ru glazes.
Adam Grochowski is analyzing brick and mortar from Tucson's 18th century presidio wall and from the Old Adobe Brick Co.