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Ultrasonic Disaggregation of Potsherds for Mineral Separation and Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alan M. Gaines  and
Julia C. Handy
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Abstract

Weakly bound composite materials such as low-fired pottery, bricks, mortar, and indurated soils can be disaggregated by ultrasound with no significant chemical or physical alteration of individual component grains. The components may then be separated by size, shape, density, magnetic properties, etc. This allows mineralogical, bulk chemical, trace-element, thermoluminescence, or other analyses of individual separates as well as determination of their relative proportions in the composite.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 252 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1977

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References

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