INTRODUCTION

Scientific techniques are regularly used in archaeological investigations of medieval and earlier sites, but their systematic application to questions relating to industries of the post-medieval and industrial periods is a recent phenomenon. There are many diff erent techniques that can be used, running from geophysical prospection and scientific dating methods such as dendrochronology and thermoluminescence, to the range of biological and earthsciences collectively known as environmental archaeology. Here the focus is on materials science, which uses many diff erent physico-chemical techniques to answer archaeological questions, largely by analysing inorganic materials such as glass, ceramics, metal alloys, chemical residues and waste slags.

THE PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF INDUSTRIAL SITES

The upsurge in excavations of ‘brown-field’ sites prior to redevelopment has provided an opportunity to develop existing techniques – both archaeological and scientific – so they are better suited to the large scale of the structures and deposits that are often encountered. There was no history of using scientific investigative techniques in industrial archaeology, although many of the structures and machines that were surveyed and recorded were examples of the application of 18th- and 19th-century science and engineering.