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+--- Thread: Is a decent specialist report a luxury? (/showthread.php?tid=4679)
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Unitof1 - 3rd January 2013
Was it this one?
Quote:3. CHALLENGING CHRONOLOGY (chair: Fraser Sturt)
Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating, perhaps the technique archaeology has been waiting for?
Moira Wilson (University of Manchester)
Rehydroxylation is the super-slow, progressive chemical recombination of environmental moisture with fired-clay material. All fired clay - bricks, tiles, pottery - expand on aging due to the update of moisture. Rehydroxylation dating (RHX) can provide a date of manufacture for archaeological ceramics by measuring the lifetime mass gain.
The long-term moisture expansion of bricks has been known to structural engineers for some time, as it is the cause of cracking in brick masonry due to expansive stresses. Research at The Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh over the past decade has shown for the first time that this process happens at a constant, but diminishing, rate over thousands of years. This research to predict expansion in structural masonry became the precursor to a new method of dating archaeological ceramics. RHX is self calibrating, so the reaction rate adjusts according to differences in firing temperature, mineralogy and microstructure. This nascent dating technique has proven to be effective for dating historical and archaeological building materials, and focus is now turning towards other types of ceramics, particularly domestic assemblages.
Research into RHX has now progressed to a validation stage and through collaboration with the Universities of Bradford and Edinburgh is currently moving towards applying RHX to archaeological ceramics. This paper will describe how RHX dating works via archaeological case studies and outline the methodology that is being applied in the current validation project. In order to demonstrate the potential of this dating technique, some of the results obtained so far in the validation project will be presented.
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 3rd January 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:Was it this one?
It was indeed.
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 3rd January 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:so this pit was stratified within a palaeoenvironmental sequence but somehow it was thought that the bones were modern. Just out of interest how big an area did the evaluation cover and how big is this years excavation going to be around this aurocks burial site. Presumably when the aurocks was buried the site was not waterlogged?
Who said this year? - merely upcoming with timeframe and archaeological contractor not settled yet, so I may be reading about it same as you
Pits on edge of former small lake with nice stratified colluvial sequence interleaved with peat running down into the soggy bit, the bits of beastie had been sealed below a peat layer although the farmer's efforts at drainage had done for that, but we know it's still nicely peaty a little downslope. That trench was a 30x4m if my memory serves me right, but the excav will probably end up being pretty much the whole field so guesssing around 15ha, encompassing the entire former lake and 360 degrees of the shoreline plus overlooking hillslope that has Meso flints lying around on it. That do you?
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Dinosaur - 3rd January 2013
redexile Wrote:It was indeed.
Think he missed the word 'nascent'...
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - Unitof1 - 3rd January 2013
So the one aurock pit amoungst other pit cuts which did not supply obvious material was only stratified under modern topsoil and you have got residual flint laying about and that the major way that you have found to seperate these features is through radiocarbon dating- what deal you getting for one of those. Did you evaluate the lake sequence? Am I right in thinking that the economics of this excavation rely on the area having to be topsoil stripped and that you are using these features to justify that it be done under archaeological control?
Nascent could be term applied to all these wonderous fabric typologies which for years pot specialists have failed to produce or show any great nessecity for except now that they dont have any work would like a developer tax to fund what ever it is that they dont produce and particularly not in the place where it would belong which is a museum.
"No-one's using it yet" try typing "Rehydroxylation (RHX) dating funding" into google and then compare to "pot fabric typology funding", mess around with a few filters. All we are missing at the moment is a price per sherd.
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 3rd January 2013
Unitof1 Wrote:Nascent could be term applied to all these wonderous fabric typologies which for years pot specialists have failed to produce
<No Longer relevant >
cheers ma dears.
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - BAJR - 3rd January 2013
Meanwhile... back on topic...
Uo1 is having a small holiday
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - RedEarth - 3rd January 2013
BAJR Wrote:Meanwhile... back on topic...
Uo1 is having a small holiday
Awww, is he going to get a new series. I swear, sometimes I only tune in to hear what he has to to say.
Actually, I'd like to know about the fabric series that have never been produced or are not fully published for some areas...
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - redexile - 3rd January 2013
RedEarth Wrote:Awww, is he going to get a new series. I swear, sometimes I only tune in to hear what he has to to say.
Actually, I'd like to know about the fabric series that have never been produced or are not fully published for some areas...
Bloody hell, don't - he reminds me of a saying of a friend of mine's mum 'you can't educate pork'
Is a decent specialist report a luxury? - RedEarth - 3rd January 2013
redexile Wrote:Bloody hell, don't - he reminds me of a saying of a friend of mine's mum 'you can't educate pork'
You kind of have to read between the vitriol and phlegm to get to the kernel of truth, which may be mixing metaphors.
That's no way to talk about your friend's mum, either.