Reviewed by George (Rip) Rapp, Jr., Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Duluth MN 55812 USA
This book was developed from a symposium sponsored
by the Divisions of the History of Chemistry, Chemical Education, and Analytical
Chemistry, and the ACS Committees on Education and on Science at the 1995
National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. This volume is the fifth
in the ACS series that is devoted to archaeological chemistry. The first
was volume 138 (1974) followed by 171 (1978), 205 (1984), 220 (1981989)
and now 625 (1996). Most members of the Society for Archaeological Sciences
should be familiar with these volumes.
There are 31 chapters/papers representing a broad
range of analytical techniques in archaeological chemistry, beginning with
an introductory chapter by volume editor Mary Virginia Orna and Joseph
B Lambert (who edited the earlier #205). This introduction, entitled ėNew
Directions in Archaeological Chemistryî succinctly lays out what this volume
contains and why the symposium was organized. Anyone wondering about the
necessity of reading this book should first read these eight pages.
Orna and Lambert rightly point out (in my view)
that ėmolecular archaeology is making great strides by utilization of sophisticated
instrumentation.î The editors indicate that a major thrust of the symposium
was devoted to papers dealing with gaining information about the peopling
of the New World an area of research where molecular biochemistry
is playing an increasing, if not dominant, role. However, other methodologies
and research areas were not neglected. The introductory chapter makes it
clear that the symposium and volume are organized around four themes: inorganic
materials; archaeological soils; organic materials [fibers and dyes]; and
biological materials [archaeological bone, connective tissue, DNA, radiocarbon
measurements].
To express the breadth of this volume one is tempted
to list the 31 papers but that would preclude any review. Suffice it to
say that topics range from the analysis and chemical chronology of glass;
through ESR, ICP, XRD, TL, C-14, stable isotope, and INNA applications;
two papers on the Shroud of Turin; four papers on bone; six papers on fibers
and textiles; and four papers that utilized biomolecular techniques. Parenthetically,
I am a bit surprised that so few of the papers in this volume are from
the ėhot topicsî in biomolecular/biochemical archaeometry. Major arguments
are raging about DNA versus linguistic groups and a very good paper highlighting
the status of analytical problems would have been very valuable.
The biochemical/biomolecular papers were devoted
to the application of multimolecular/biomarker techniques to the identification
of fecal material in archaeological soils and sediments (Evershed and Bethell);
historico- chemical analysis of plant dyestuffs used in textiles from ancient
Israel (Koren); ancient DNA in Texas rock paintings (Reese et al); and
ancient nucleic acids in prehispanic Mexican populations (Vargas-Sanders
et al). Although all were interesting and informative only the last of
these papers relates to peopling of the New World. The paper by Batt and
Pollard on radiocarbon calibration and the peopling of North America is
the only paper directly addressing critical issues in the peopling of the
New World. Perhaps other papers presented did not make it into the symposium
volume.
This criticism aside I have found all five of the
volumes in this American Chemical Society series to be quite valuable.
The paper by Evershed and co-workers on means of analyzing for characteristic
steroidal marker compounds allows us to obtain here to fore unavailable
information. I teach a broad-based archaeological science graduate course
on the Duluth and the Twin Cities campuses of the University of Minnesota
and the range of papers in these volumes provides an insight into the spectrum
of applications in chemical analysis based archaeology. I have found few
ėpotboilersî among the offerings. This volume continues this fine tradition
with important papers that perhaps I would not otherwise see.