Potteries of the Caribbean

Our last lecture of 2017 took place on Friday 24 November and was given by our departing section secretary Dr Becki Scott who described her recent scientific adventures in the Caribbean in ‘Potteries of the Caribbean’. The lecture took place in the social area behind Brel Theatre at the British School of Brussels.

The Caribbean has a rich and varied past, often represented by ceramic objects. Ceramic objects are usually prolific on archaeological sites and therefore form a focus for many interdisciplinary studies.

These remains can provide a wealth of information about past cultures, relating to style, manufacturing technology, and ultimately past trade and resource management. Stylistic and typological studies can be used to create relative chronologies for a site, while chemical and petrographic analyses are used to provenance the raw material(s) used in the manufacture of the object. Although fragments of ceramics are sometimes available for destructive analyses, many objects held in collections are not. Likewise, these precious objects cannot always be transported to laboratories for further study.

Provenance
Becki was involved with a couple of projects focusing on the provenancing of ceramic objects from the Lesser Antilles. Ceramic fragments from excavation contexts in the Caribbean had been sent to Europe for destructive chemical and petrographic analyses. However, larger, more complete objects in collections on the islands of Grenada and St. Vincent could neither be sub-sampled nor exported.

Becki developed a method of using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF) to analyse these objects. In other words, she took the instrument to the objects, rather than the objects to the lab. The result of this work has meant that objects, which would otherwise not be analysed geochemically, could be used to contribute to studies determining the cultural interactions between the islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Find out more about Becki's Caribbean adventures and her work in other areas on her blog.

Bye-bye Becki
The event will also be a chance to say ‘au revoir’ to Becki (pictured below with her pXRF spectrometer) as she is now working at Greenwich University in the UK and is resigning as section secretary. However Becki did manage to make a final appearance for RSC Belgium as part of our curling team in December.

Dr Rebecca Beasant Scott – Becki - has been an active member of our section committee, which she joined in 2012, and has acted as section secretary for the past two years.

Born and brought up in Norfolk, Becki had an early interest in archaeology and took a BA in the subject at the University of Wales, Lampeter including a dissertation that focused on an area of south Norfolk that may have been in continuous occupation and use from the Iron Age to today. Joke?

She then took an MA in Cultural Landscape Management at Lampeter, followed by a MSc in Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology at Cranfield University awarded in 2008 for which she won the Inforce Prize for best overall academic performance.

This was followed by a PhD at Cranfield on the investigation and characterisation of colourless glass from forensic and archaeological contexts using multiple interdisciplinary analytical techniques.

A postdoctoral position at KU Leuven brought her to Belgium to research on the use of trace elements to provenance archaeological glass in 2010-2011. Followed by a second post-doc position in Leiden University in The Netherlands. Becki has now returned to the UK where she is employed as an Analytical Geochemist at the University of Greenwich on its Chatham campus.

Read about Becki's Caribbean Adventure

RSC Belgium’s section secretary Becki Scott is a post-doctoral researcher with the NWO Island Networks project at Leiden University and is currently on a month long archaeological holiday mission in the Caribbean! There she is using her trusty phaser pXRF machine (see right) on ceramics and sampling clay deposits. And what is more she is keeping a daily blog diary so we can keep up with her Caribbean adventure!

Becki has a BA in Archaeology and an MA in Cultural Landscape Management from the University of Wales, Lampeter, and an MSc in Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology. She was awarded her PhD in 2011 in Archaeological and Forensic Glass Analysis from Cranfield University and joined the RSC Belgium section when she moved to KU Leuven in Belgium as a as a post-doctoral researcher on the ERC funded ARCHGLASS project analysing the effects of recycling on Roman glass compositions.

During this time, she developed an interest and expertise in the use of portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) for the non-destructive analysis of archaeo-materials: a skill that Becki has used in a variety of projects for museums, archaeological units, and heritage institutions.

Island Networks
While working for KU Leuven, Becki began collaborating with the HERA Carib Connections project, developing a method for analysing the composition of indigenous ceramic objects from the Lesser Antilles. Becki's work helped identify the provenance of ceramic objects in the field, whilst working in Grenada. Her current role on the NWO Island Networks project continues this work to cover other islands in the Lesser Antilles.

The focus of the NWO Island Networks programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide. The period AD 1000-1800 represents an archaeologically understudied and turbulent era during which the islands’ inhabitants came under increasing influence from South America and the Greater Antilles and participated in the last phase of indigenous resistance to colonial powers.

Caribbean archaeological research has focused on patterns of regional and pan-regional mobility of peoples and the exchange of goods and ideas during the pre-colonial period (pre-1492). Recent investigations have for the first time provided insights into early colonial period indigenous archaeology in the Lesser Antilles through the discovery of 16-18th century Amerindian settlements and associated material culture repertoires.

These discoveries offer a unique opportunity to study continuity and change in inter-community social relationships, and transformations of island networks at the advent of European colonialism using a multi-disciplinary approach.

Other interests
As well as being the secretary of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Belgium Section, Becki is also a member of No Man's Land (NML) the society for Great War Archaeologists and she was a winner in the 'I'm a Scientist, get me out of here' online science communication competition and is in the process of developing an 'Archaeometry' card game.

You can read Becki’s blog here and she is also on Twitter! Alternatively you could catch up with Becki’s adventures at our AGM on Friday 10 February at Les Amis Dinent Restaurant in Wezembeek-Oppem.

Conserving Historical Artefacts

The evening of 19 May 2016 saw RSC Belgium's last lecture before our normal break for the summer months with a good audience of RSC members and friends enjoying a talk on the 'Conservation of Historical Artefacts' from Dr. Rob Janaway of Bradford University. The venue for the talk was Rubens Hall at the British School of Brussels (BSB) and Dr Janaway explored the various scientific methods available to preserve and restore ancient artefacts retrieved from archaeological excavations around the world.

Rob Janaway explained the various processes that result in the differential decay and preservation of artefacts buried in the soil and also underwater. He then described how, once these materials have been excavated, the various scientific methods that are available to preserve and restore ancient artefacts retrieved from archaeological excavations around the world are used. His talk included case studies of both ancient artefacts and more recent material associated with World War 1 battlefields in Belgium.

Rob (pictured above) is Lecturer in Archaeological Sciences and has more than 35 years’ experience of Archaeology in both the field and the laboratory. He originally qualified in Archaeological Conservation and specialised in the relationship between materials degradation and their depositional environments.

He has worked on a range archaeological sites including, peat bogs, desert sites, and deep stratified urban deposits. He is a specialist on the taphonomy (the study of decaying organisms over time and how they may become fossilised) and has worked on material from cemeteries, crypts and mausoleums.

He has been involved in taphonomy and conservation of material studies for items from WWI sites in Flanders and he is deeply involved in research on the relationship between soil chemistry, land use and the survival of vulnerable metal artefacts from the medieval battlefield of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. He has also worked on the analysis of textiles and clothing from the wreck of the Mary Rose - Henry the Eighth's flagship.

In addition to a traditional archaeological role he acts as a Forensic Archaeologist. He has worked on more than 25 criminal cases for a variety of British police forces in a variety of roles including excavator and taphonomy consultant and he has acted as an expert witness in court.

Jobs entertaining and interesting presentation led to some extended discussions after the talk.

Fakes, Forgeries & Forensics

The RSC 2012 Autumn season got off to a great start on September 11 with an interesting and entertaining presentation from Dr. Patrick Degryse from the Centre for Archaeological Sciences at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL).

Entitled 'Fakes, Forgeries & Forensics: Chemistry & Archaeology' Dr. Degryse explained the services and research that his department offer to the world of archaeology to a good audience of members and friends in the cosy atmosphere of Le Chalet Vert in Tervuren.

Fakes
Much of the work involves isotopic and elemental analysis for provenance studies on items auch as Ancient Egyptian mummies, medieval triptych paintings and (as it turned out) a rather modern reproduction of an Anatolian idol. Dr. Degryse stated that it is very difficult to make an absolute positive statement about the provenance of an article but the work of the department can exclude some sources and narrow down the possibilities.

A specific research focus at KUL is on early glass. One recent PhD student was assigned to collect sand samples from beaches all around the Mediterranean to establish an elemental background reference for determination of the source of ancient glass samples.

Forgeries
Obviously when examining precious ancient objects non-destructive testing is preffered and one technique (X-ray fluorescence - XRF) was demonstrated on a contemporary source! Apparently the UK pound sterling is not as sound as one might hope with perhaps 3% or more of the coinage in circulation being forged. This has led to calls from international monetary authorities for the UK to withdraw and re mint the entire stock. The euro on the other hand is - at least on the forgery front - very sound due to a special alloy involved in its fabrication that makes it very hard to fake.

However, despite the best efforts of Patrick and his colleague RSC Belgium exec member Becki Scott we were unable to find any fake pound coins amongst the 30 odd sample size provided by our audience. The coins were analysed using a portable XRF device which seemed to have been modelled on a Star Trek phazer.

Dr. Patrick Degryse (right), Dr. Becki Scott and RSC Belgium chairman Prof. Bob Crichton are pictured with the 'XRF phazer' above.