Sustainable Archaeology in the News

Sustainable Archaeology has been receiving both national and international exposure over the past few weeks. Notably, the project was the subject of an article in the Globe and Mail this week, featuring the labs and facility at SA: McMaster in Hamilton. Digital imaging of boxwood prayer beads by curators Alexandra Suda and Lisa Ellis of the Art Gallery of Ontario at SA: Western's digital imaging labs was featured in the Spring 2013 CODART eZine.

Visit to Sustainable Archaeology: McMaster

Last Friday, our team here at Sustainable Archaeology: Western took a road trip to visit Sustainable Archaeology: McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario. We met with Dr. Aubrey Cannon and Meghan Burchell of the McMaster facility to discuss the development of Sustainable Archaeology's database, and the integration of the collections held physically at the two facilities in London and Hamilton into the centralized Informational Platform. 

From left to right: Kira Westby, SA: Western, Dr. Aubrey Cannon and Meghan Burchell, SA: McMaster,
Dr. Rhonda Bathurst and Dr. Neal Ferris, SA: Western. Photo taken at the McMaster SA facility.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the labs and storage repository of Sustainable Archaeology: McMaster have been integrated into a renovated facility that is part of McMaster Innovation Park. Like Sustainable Archaeology: Western, the McMaster repository space is outfitted with high density mobile shelving units, and will store materials in the same green archival-grade polypropylene boxes as the Western facility. The two facilities will follow the same policies and procedures for storing and managing collections, using archival-grade packaging materials to ensure longevity and research viability of collections. Although held physically in two different facilities, all collections held by Sustainable Archaeology will be incorporated into the single database system and research platform developed by Sustainable Archaeology, allowing broad access to these materials.

 

Sustainable Archaeology McMaster lab spaces are designed to enable focus on materials analysis, including petrographic, biogeochemical, zooarchaeological and geoarchaeological studies. The facility has a processing and wet lab (seen below), where artifacts, faunal and floral materials, as well as soils and sediments are processed, and where materials preparation and analysis can be performed, as well as a microscopy and analytical lab space that incorporates a number of powerful microscopes, used to facilitate study of micro-artifacts and to produce high resolution digital images. 

Over the next few months we'll be working closely with Sustainable Archaeology: McMaster to incorporate our inventory management system, which will allow us to track and manage collections held collectively by Sustainable Archaeology at the two facilities, and to finalize our policies for collections management. We'll also be working with our database team here at SA: Western and with SA: McMaster to begin testing the collections management portions of the database.

A microCT and Archaeobotanical Analysis of Charcoal

The microCT scanner at Sustainable Archaeology was used to non-destructively study charcoal remains from the Arkona site, a ca. AD 1200 Younge Phase village site in Ontario. The scanned charcoal was analyzed and identified by Ontario archaeobotanist Rudy Fecteau. Using the microCT allowed for the charred remains to be digitally "split" in order to examine internal structures while preserving the original specimen for future analysis.

As noted in the video, the species of the second charcoal sample was not determined, and we invite our blog readers to assist us with the identification. Below are two closeup images giving a closer look at the internal structures of the second sample. If you have an idea of what the species might be, let us know by commenting on the blog, by tweeting the answer to us (@SustArchaeology), or by posting on our Facebook page.

 Special thank you to Rudy Fecteau for providing feedback and analysis on our scans, and for the delicious strawberry loaf!

Notes from the SA: February - March 2013

The February - March 2013 edition of Notes from the SA, Sustainable Archaeology's newsletter.

Guest Blog #4: A Non-Destructive Technology for Palaeopathology: Differential Diagnosis of Cranial Lesions in Archaeological Human Populations

Jennifer Morgan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Western University.  Jennifer has been working with Sustainable Archaeology's microCT scanner to scan and analyze Maya and Egyptian archaeological cranial samples exhibiting cribra orbitalia and/or porotic hyperostosis in order to assess whether the microCT is a more effective tool than destructive thin section techniques to study the etiology, activity, and healing of the lesions. 

This blog features Jennifer's contribution to the upcoming edition of the Sustainable Archaeology newsletter, Notes from the SA, which will be published on February 7th.

A Non-Destructive Technology for Palaeopathology: Differential Diagnosis of Cranial Lesions in Archaeological Human Populations

Jennifer Morgan, PhD Candidate, Western University 

Palaeopathology is defined as the scientific study of disease processes from archaeological human remains. The pattern of disease that affects a population is the expression of the biological and cultural stressors to which they were exposed. It is influenced by the environment, sex, social status, diet, occupation, and even cultural belief systems. These factors help researchers to interpret and explain the patterns of disease observable on human skeletal remains. Recent microscopic analyses of bone have revealed that porotic lesions of the skull, referred to as cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, can be caused by more than one health related condition. Originally associated with anaemia, other conditions including vitamin deficiencies and localized infections have also been implicated as possible causes of these lesions. Therefore, it is critical to establish methods that can accurately assess health conditions from skeletal remains. Inaccurate diagnoses can have significant implications for our current understandings of how disease and other health related conditions may have evolved over time, across geographic space, and how they may have affected human populations in the past.

The purpose of my current doctoral research is to examine an innovative non-destructive method for improving the accuracy of disease diagnosis in archaeological skeletal samples.  The principal objective of this study is to determine whether micro-computed tomography (μCT) and advanced methods of digital image analysis can be used in palaeopathology to visualize small scale bone changes which are typical of certain health conditions. The goals of this research are two-fold.  First, I wish to assess the capability of μCT and digital image analysis as sufficient alternatives to destructive thin section techniques which are traditionally used for microscopic skeletal analysis in bioarchaeological research. Second, I wish to evaluate the ability of µCT for more reliable differentiation between the various pathological conditions that contribute to the presence skeletal lesions in archaeological human remains.

Why is this significant?  In order to establish a reliable diagnosis it is often necessary to analyze the microscopic structures of diseased bone. Microscopy is essential in palaeopathology since although several disease processes can lead to similar bone surface changes, microscopic analyses demonstrate that there are patterns of microscopic changes which are unique to specific diseases. The classic way to examine bone microscopically is through the use of histological thin sections of bone, which require significant preparation and destruction of the sample. The method proposed for my doctoral research, using μCT, requires little to no sample preparation and is a method which has the potential for high resolution bone analysis, while eliminating the need for destructive sampling of valuable archaeological remains. 

For this research project, skeletal samples have been drawn from an Egyptian and several Maya collections housed at Western University in London, Ontario.  A large number of individuals with observable porotic cranial lesions have been μCT scanned in the Ancient Images Laboratory.  The resulting images are currently being qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed using the digital image analysis software VGStudio Max 2.2. These analyses of bone structural changes will determine whether the characteristic microscopic patterns indicative of anaemia, vitamin deficiencies, and infectious processes described in the literature can be differentiated using μCT. It is anticipated that the results of this research project will make a significant contribution to palaeopathology by providing non-destructive, high resolution digital techniques for the diagnosis of disease from archaeological skeletal samples as well as vastly improving our epidemiological understandings of health and disease in archaeological populations.

Museum Kiosks

 

Today the Museum of Ontario Archaeology, next door, installed a set of touch-screen kiosks in their gallery. The kiosks will display the interactive reconstruction of the Lawson Village that the Loyalist College interns of the Sustainable Archaeology Animation Unit developed while working at Sustainable Archaeology in the summer of 2012.

MicroCT Rotating Target and a Holiday Fruit Cake

In the Sustainable Archaeology Ancient Images Lab, we've been performing proof of concept tests using the rotating target on the microCT. The rotating target enables the user to "up" the flux (amount of power) that can be delivered to the target, without degrading the spot size - essentially allowing for faster scanning without compromising the excellent resolution of the machine. This give us the ability to greatly increase the amount of power we can use in a scan, allowing us to scan very dense objects, including meteorites, or, holiday fruit cake!

Special thank you to Hope Miles for providing the delicious fruit cake!