SCALING UP, SCALING DOWN: EXPERIMENTS WITH HIGH RESOLUTION COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCANNING OF MICROARTEFACTS

Microartefact analysis remains an uncommon practice in archaeology due to the time-consuming nature of sample processing and analysis and the difficulty of ensuring reliability, replicability, and consistency in material identification and quantification. Work by Huisman et al. (2014) demonstrated the viability of using micro CT (Computed Tomography) to distinguish different kinds of artifactual materials in midden samples, an approach that can help remove “human error” and to speed up the analytical process. However, micro CT samples are limited in size relative to those that can be analysed via High-Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT). In addition, the utility of CT techniques for microartefact analysis in different soil types currently is little explored. We present the results of on-going experimental work using scanning of “cores” containing different sediment matrices and microartefactual materials. Our results are complementary to those of Huisman et al. (2014), showing that microartefacts, including lithic debris, are readily distinguished from enclosing matrices via density class and morphological analysis.