Comparing different pre-treatment methods for strongly compacted organic sediments prior to wet-sieving: a case study on Roman waterlogged deposits

Patricia Vandorpe and Stefanie Jacomet

Environmental Archaeology, 2007, vol. 12, issue 2, 207-214

Abstract: Four pre-treatment methods have been tested on strongly compacted organic sediments prior to sieving. They comprise heating, freezing, soaking in NaHCO3 (sodium bicarbonate) and heating with 10% KOH (potassium hydroxide). The aim of the experiment was to find out which pre-treatment method facilitates the sieving process without destroying the waterlogged plant remains recovered. Several methods are already described in the literature, but only few systematic comparisons of pre-treatment methods were undertaken. Of the four techniques tested, freezing the samples prior to sieving came out as the best option; it eases sieving and has the least damaging impact on the waterlogged plant remains. In addition, it is fast, uncomplicated and does not leave any chemical waste.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1179/174963107x226462 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:12:y:2007:i:2:p:207-214

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/yenv20

DOI: 10.1179/174963107x226462

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Archaeology is currently edited by Tim Mighall

More articles in Environmental Archaeology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().