Dr. Chris Vyhnal sat down remotely with SAS associate editor Roxanne Radpour to discuss how archaeological science can play an important role in teaching chemistry and experimental science to high school students. Vyhnal, the Science Department Chair at the Thacher School in Ojai, California, designed a 4-day course titled “Chemical Synthesis of Color in Art” for his students when he and the rest of his colleagues at Thacher were tasked to produce an emergency last minute short course in the 2017-2018 academic school year.
We are very excited to announce that Dr Thibaut Devièse is joining the SAS blog/ bulletin, covering the topic of archaeological organic materials.
Read more: New associate editor of archaeological organic materials
By Laerke Recht, associate editor in Zooarchaeology
As my first contribution to this newsletter, I want to highlight two new zooarchaeology-related things that I am excited about:
By Mark Golitko, Associate editor in lithic and network analysis
This is my first blog since being asked to serve as associate editor for lithic analysis and network analysis. It is somewhat delayed due to the global pandemic and the strange adjustments we have all had to make (teaching and conducting all business online in my case). The spread of Covid-19 itself, and the rapid dissemination of fake news and strange conspiracy theories surrounding the virus have served to highlight the complexity of the global human network to which we all belong, such that a virus that jumped to the human population somewhere in Wuhan, China, reached South Bend, Indiana (where I currently sit writing this) after only about two or three months.
Technological examination of copper bolts from the Deltebre I (1813) site by means of spatially resolved neutron texture measurements
In this brief report, the ongoing spatially resolved neutron texture analysis performed on several copper bolts used to fasten different wooden components of the hull’s structure recovered from the Deltebre I (1813) shipwreck is presented. This site corresponds to a transport ship of a combined British, Sicilian and Spanish fleet supervised by Lt. Gen. John Murray, which ran aground in the Ebro delta (Catalonia coast, western Mediterranean) after an unsuccessful expedition to liberate the city of Tarragona from the control of Napoleon’s troops. Since 2008, it has been the subject of archaeological study by the staff of the Catalan Centre for Underwater Archaeology of the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia. The research conducted has included surveying and recording the ship’s structure, and the excavation of the vessel’s whole cargo (Vivar et al. 2014, 2016). Previous metallurgical studies were conducted on different copper-base artifacts associated with the ship’s structure and cargo (Ciarlo 2015; Ciarlo et al. 2016).
We had the honour to talk to Drs. Hector Orengo and Arnau Garcia-Molsosa about the research that won the inaugural cycle of this prize. You can find out more in the interview about what inspired them to develop this new field survey technique, the obstacles they encountered, and their plans for taking this new method to the next level. You can view the interview on the : SAS Facebook page
As part of the award, the winning article is made available without a paywall for the next year. Check out the original research here:
Interested in submitting a manuscript for consideration in the 2020 cycle? Learn more here: