Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects
Often treated as an accessory science, organic residue analysis (ORA) has the capacity to illuminate otherwise hidden aspects of ancient technology, culture, and economy, and therein can play a central role in archaeological inquiry. Through ORA, both the intact vessel freshly excavated from a tomb...
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| Format: | Article |
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Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
2019
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120617 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7618-7030 |
| _version_ | 1811086398929764352 |
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| author | Birney, Kathleen J. Koh, Andrew J |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Materials Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Materials Science and Engineering Birney, Kathleen J. Koh, Andrew J |
| author_sort | Birney, Kathleen J. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Often treated as an accessory science, organic residue analysis (ORA) has the capacity to illuminate otherwise hidden aspects of ancient technology, culture, and economy, and therein can play a central role in archaeological inquiry. Through ORA, both the intact vessel freshly excavated from a tomb and the sherd tucked away in a museum storage closet can offer insights into their contents, their histories, and the cultures that created them—provided the results can be carefully calibrated to account for their treatment during and after excavation. The case study below presents ORA data obtained from a range of artifacts from Late Bronze Age Crete, setting results from freshly-excavated and legacy objects alongside one another. Although legacy objects do tend to yield diminished results from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective, our comparative work has demonstrated both their value and untapped potential when their object biographies are carefully considered. It also sheds light on biomarker degradation processes, which have implications for methodologies of extraction and interpretation of legacy objects. Comparative studies such as these broaden the pool of viable ORA candidates, and therein amplify ORA’s ability to reveal patterns of consumption as well as ecological and environmental change. They also highlight the role and value of data-sharing in collaborative environments such as the OpenARCHEM archaeometric database. Keywords: organic residue analysis (ORA); archaeochemistry; phytochemistry; ethnobotany; ethnohistory; paleoenvironment; paleoecology; legacy artifacts; perfumed oils; Minoan Crete; OpenARCHEM |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:25:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/120617 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:25:23Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1206172022-10-01T15:12:20Z Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects Birney, Kathleen J. Koh, Andrew J Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Materials Science and Engineering Koh, Andrew J Often treated as an accessory science, organic residue analysis (ORA) has the capacity to illuminate otherwise hidden aspects of ancient technology, culture, and economy, and therein can play a central role in archaeological inquiry. Through ORA, both the intact vessel freshly excavated from a tomb and the sherd tucked away in a museum storage closet can offer insights into their contents, their histories, and the cultures that created them—provided the results can be carefully calibrated to account for their treatment during and after excavation. The case study below presents ORA data obtained from a range of artifacts from Late Bronze Age Crete, setting results from freshly-excavated and legacy objects alongside one another. Although legacy objects do tend to yield diminished results from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective, our comparative work has demonstrated both their value and untapped potential when their object biographies are carefully considered. It also sheds light on biomarker degradation processes, which have implications for methodologies of extraction and interpretation of legacy objects. Comparative studies such as these broaden the pool of viable ORA candidates, and therein amplify ORA’s ability to reveal patterns of consumption as well as ecological and environmental change. They also highlight the role and value of data-sharing in collaborative environments such as the OpenARCHEM archaeometric database. Keywords: organic residue analysis (ORA); archaeochemistry; phytochemistry; ethnobotany; ethnohistory; paleoenvironment; paleoecology; legacy artifacts; perfumed oils; Minoan Crete; OpenARCHEM 2019-03-01T19:52:01Z 2019-03-01T19:52:01Z 2019-01 2018-12 2019-02-15T07:53:56Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2071-1050 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120617 Koh, Andrew and Kathleen Birney. "Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects." Sustainability 11, 3 (January 2019): 656 © 2019 The Authors https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7618-7030 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11030656 Sustainability Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
| spellingShingle | Birney, Kathleen J. Koh, Andrew J Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title | Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title_full | Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title_fullStr | Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title_short | Ancient Organic Residues as Cultural and Environmental Proxies: The Value of Legacy Objects |
| title_sort | ancient organic residues as cultural and environmental proxies the value of legacy objects |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120617 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7618-7030 |
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