[Kosmo]

ASHKELON, Israel — To the naked eye, the white, powdery substance appeared to be plaster. That’s what the professional and volunteer archaeologists at a dig in Israel concluded. To be certain, though, they subjected the chalky dust to spectroscopy and a petrographic microscope, only to discover that it was not a manufactured substance, but decayed plant life and fecal matter.

What that meant to the archaeologists from the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon — a former seaport south of Tel Aviv that was home to successive civilizations over thousands of years — was that structures thought to have been inhabited by people were more likely occupied by animals. That revelation upended their view of what they were excavating.

“For archaeologists,” said the expedition’s co-director, Daniel M. Master, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, “it was the difference between a palace and a stable.”

This marriage of social and natural sciences is an emerging discipline that has been called microarchaeology by Steve Weiner, director of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science in the Weizmann Institute in Israel, which is collaborating with the expedition...




http://www.nytimes.c...ref=global-home

[Melvadius]

How nice it is for an archaeological site to have large sums of money lying around ready to throw at a problem. I may be a bit cynical but possibly this advance is more to do with where the excavation is, local politics and who's stumping up the cash than actual research 'needs'.

Most archaeolgical excavations have to make do with some basic facilities on site and then begging, borrowing or stealing lab time afterwards - if extremely lucky they may find a research fellow able to provide expert knowledge by return post.

[Artimi]

Is this the only site to be supplied with such modern tools? and if not why the comment?

[Melvadius]

Artimi, on 10 January 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

Is this the only site to be supplied with such modern tools? and if not why the comment?

Like I say I may be feeling a bit cynical at present but there have been numerous reports regarding archaeological work in that part of the world being driven by an overtly political/ religious agenda.

Particularly but not exclusively in the occupied West Bank.

So hearing about very expensive equipment and scientific input being available efectively 24 hours a day on one project all be it on the coast near Tel Aviv makes me somewhat suspicious of what lies behind it.