Projects
Professor Pamela Vandiver, her students and colleagues are working on several research projects. They include:

Sitkiyatki Pottery
Vandiver and MSE grad student Caitlin O’Grady, are studying a particularly elegant type of Hopi pottery, called "Sikiyatki polychrome." It's often called the "Porcelain of the Southwest."

To understand both the high-fired ceramic technology that created it and the factors that have caused it to be so well preserved, she is using the same analytical methodology she used with the Cambodian ceramics. This involves characterizing composition, microstructure and firing temperature of both the ceramic body and the four different colors of slip-glazes.

O'Grady will be using local materials to reproduce some parts of the firing process that are particularly difficult to understand and that require a nuanced, experimental approach.

Metallurgical Slags
MSE grad student Dan Jeffery is studying the behavioral similarities in glass slags that result from smelting several different types of metals. These include tin, copper, iron and lead. Even though the compositions and temperatures of the smelting processes are different, the slag viscosities may be similar.

For the tin and copper, he is modeling his studies on traditional technologies used in the second and third millennia B.C. at the Near Eastern sites of Goltepe in Turkey, Tell Feinan in Jordan and Timna in Israel.

For the iron, he is characterizing 17th century early Industrial Revolution slags from New England and Scotland.

For the lead, he is using slags produced by a new process being developed in England. It is designed extract lead when CRT and TV-screens are recycled.

Jeffery has built traditional furnaces for smelting iron and copper and will be testing them in the next few weeks.

Both O’Grady and Jeffery have received Gutmann Foundation grants for conservation science research and recently have been awarded prestigious NSF IGERT one-year fellowships in archeological science.

Laser Cleaning Technology
Vandiver also is collaborating with Associate Professor Kelly Potter, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on how to use lasers to clean old coatings from artifacts. In the 1950s, for instance, conservators were using a soluble nylon to coat artifacts. Materials scientists now recognize that this can damage artifacts and that these nylon coatings need to be removed.

"We are looking at how the laser alters the composition of a material as the coating is removed," Vandiver says. "We're trying to find out what's happening at a molecular level. No one has ever done that. Instead, they've cleaned with a laser and said, 'OK, that looks right,' but we don't know if we're altering or damaging these artifacts until we really understand compositional and microstructural transformations."

Adobe Making and Brick Micromorphology and Compositional Variability
Vandiver and MSE student Adam Grochowski are analyzing brick and mortar from Tucson's 18th century presidio wall and from the Old Adobe Brick Co. to understand the differences and why these materials are different.

Some of the results from this work are being applied to analyzing ancient adobe bricks at the Chevelon and Homolovi sites in Northern Arizona. We are collaborating on this research with Prof. Chuck Adams, curator of archaeology at the Arizona State Museum, and archaeology grad students, AJ Vonarx and Lisa Gavioli.

Chinese Ru Glazes
MSE student Alix Deymier, Vandiver and Prof. Supapan Seraphin are analyzing the physical chemistry of green celadon Ru glazes on Chinese Northern Song Dynasty (10th to 12th century) imperial ceramics. "On this project, as with all such work, we are looking through a veil of weathering and working back through the technology to the raw materials and we are trying to recreate some of the details of the transformations that occurred during firing," Vandiver says.

This involves interconnected processes that the researchers need to analyze and deconstruct. They need to understand the effects of materials corrosion and weathering, as well as the technology of how these things were made and used. Other factors include previous restoration efforts and the effects of long storage or burial at an archaeological site.

"Often, the samples we have to work with are tiny, measuring maybe 20 cubic microns, and we need to process these through several analytical tests," Vandiver says.

Additional Info:
- Engineers Resurrect a 900-year-old Technology - March 31, 2004 uanews.org story

A Greek Kiln Replica
Vandiver and her students are working with Assistant Professor Eleni Hasaki, of the UA Classics Department. They're providing technical support for an effort to construct a wood-burning kiln. It's a replica of a Greek kiln used in the 4th century B.C.

Additional Info:
- Tucson chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America

Professor Nancy Odegaard, her students and colleagues are working on several research projects. They include:

Tohono O'Odham Pottery
Vandiver also is working with Tohono O'Odhom potter and UA grad student Reuben Naranjo to better understand the traditional materials and techniques used for making pottery in the Tohono O'Odhom community near Tucson.

Pesticides
Museum conservators have long held a concern that the residues from historic pesticide applications on museum objects may present an invisible human health hazard to researchers and curators and that these contaminants may cause additional chemical deterioration to objects by changing the texture, structure and color of certain object surfaces.

Since the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, a new urgency to understand and mitigate this problem is present. Sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony may be returned to American Indians for cultural use. The need to identify these contaminants, quantify them, interpret the human health hazard, educate tribes and museums, and to develop methods to safely remove them has lead to a team approach at the University of Arizona. The ASM Conservation Laboratory in collaboration with numerous researchers have developed testing, protocols, a compiled history of museum pesticide use, and are actively researching methods to remove pesticide contaminants.

Southwest Pottery Studies
The ASM Southwest Pottery Project was named an official project of the Save America’s Treasures program in 2000. The project focuses conservation research and treatment attention to 20,000 vessels. This comprehensive collection represents virtually all the cultures, past and present, in the Southwest including the oldest dated pot and ranging to vessels made this year.

Conservators are examining each vessel for signs of deterioration and creating a searchable database. A research project that identifies ancient and historic era adhesives used to repair or coat the vessels is also underway. Using UV lighting, IR photography, microscopy with specially adapted chemical spot tests and FTIR, the lab will establish a history for the use of adhesives in the ancient Southwest and by archaeologists. The ability to understand the adhesive used on a vessel has a direct impact on how a conservation treatment is developed. For example, knowledge of an unstable or degrading adhesive’s composition can clarify its solubility and tell conservators how it may be removed. This is particularly useful knowledge regarding the care of sacred vessels that have cultural limitations related to handling, treatment, and storage.

Spot Testing Techniques
Spot testing or the use of chemical reagents to identify or characterize the material composition (metals, proteins, plastics), deterioration products (corrosion, salts), archaeological soils, and storage materials. Spot testing techniques provide a complimentary skill to instrumental analytical methods. Particularly in situations where taking sample from artifacts or when access to instrumentation is just not possible, for example, at archaeological sites or in more remote parts of the world. Students using the systematic organization of the techniques developed at the UA learn the least damaging ways to obtain samples and how to test minute amounts of sample.

Additional Info:
- Engineers Resurrect a 900-year-old Technology - May 6, 2005 UANews.org story