Research Excellence Academy Studentship in Prehistoric fuel use in the archaeological record: developing the potential of ash through integrating microfossil analysis and geochemistry  

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3 ans à partir de janvier 2017

Newcastle University

 

Studies of fuel use in archaeology and its environmental impacts have relied largely on wood charcoal due to the visibility and ease of recovery of this material. However, materials which are promoted today as biofuels, including animal dung and agricultural waste, were potentially important for processes including pottery production and metallurgy. Identifying non-wood fuels in prehistory is problematic as they are transformed to ash much more rapidly than wood.

 

This research will develop a new integrated method for identifying non-wood fuels in the archaeological record, conducting controlled burning experiments and analysing ashes using geochemistry (including FT-IR, pXRF, SEM), microfossil analysis and analytical microscopy. The experimental data will be applied to archaeological ashes from the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Turkey, and other prehistoric settlements in contrasting environments where different types of fuel were available. The data generated from analysis of ashes will be compared with published wood charcoal data to identify the proportions of different fuels being burnt for different activities, and how this changed over time from the early pre-pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic.

 

The lead supervisor for this project is Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito (Archaeology) with co-supervision by Dr Andy Henderson (Geography) () at Newcastle University and Professor Marco Madella at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Humanities).

 

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Date limite : 30 septembre 2016