When I read the post calling for bloggers for the Annual Meeting (#AICmtg19, lest we forget), I immediately went to the schedule and picked out my two posts. This one drew my attention because in its title, it claimed to be something that a lot of us have begun to yearn for - a talk that explained how we might do meaningful research without the resources that only select institutions have access to. So many conference papers, so many JAIC and SiC articles, describe cutting edge research with all the latest kit - kit that many of us wouldn’t have access to even in our wildest dreams. But we all want to be able to do research that can inform our practice, regardless of the tools at our disposal, so this talk was immediately attractive to me.
The speaker - Caitlin O’Grady, a lecturer in conservation at UCL - began by laying out a methodology for carrying out research, which boils down to “multidisciplinary.” The most meaningful conclusions can be drawn from data when many lines of evidence are considered, coming from many disciplines and incorporating qualitative and quantitative data. This idea is clear and useful, and something many of us try to keep in mind in our work and I think is relatively common on archaeological projects. The speaker then discussed Bayesian statistics, although the connection to the methodology and case studies was not very clear.
She then presented three case studies: wall paintings from San Bartolo in Guatemala, finds from Kaymakçi in Turkey, and previously-conserved ceramics from the Petrie Museum. Each are interesting studies in themselves - that much is not in question.
At the remote archaeological site in Guatemala, experts worked together to determine that three different artists had worked at the same time to paint the mural, apparently working with local materials but slightly different recipes. From a converted cow barn in Turkey, experts worked together to analyze artifacts like pierced ceramic sherds, slag, and crucibles to piece together modes of production and use. At the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, UCL staff and students pieced together the interesting post-excavation histories of some of its ceramic objects.
But what gave me pause in all these cases was the list of resources and tools used by the multidisciplinary teams. In Guatemala, onsite documentation included digital scanning, and hundreds of samples were taken using pXRF. The results were supported by XRD and Raman back in the lab. In Turkey, researchers had access to microchemical spot-testing, liquid/plastic limit testing, a microscope, and pXRF. At the Petrie Museum, research into archival documents was supplemented by spot-testing, FTIR, and SEM-EDS analysis.
Finally, the speaker drew together some common threads of these cases at the end of her talk, including open communication, establishing clear goals, collegial discussion without egos, and considering all lines of evidence and varying disciplinary approaches in order to draw culturally meaningful conclusions. Each of these are important things to keep in mind when designing research projects.
Of all the talks I attended at the meeting, this one spawned one of the most interesting discussions on social media. I certainly came out of it with several questions, mainly: can we really consider pXRF to be minimal resources? Others brought up the same concern. Colleagues who worked on archaeological excavations, or had to set up a lab on a budget, brought up that in many cases they were happy to even have enough money for hand tools, specimen trays and bags, cling film, a sink, B72, etc. Access to pXRF, let alone SEM and XRD, is unthinkable for many labs, not to mention remote archaeological sites.
Caitlin O’Grady presented three interesting case studies that involved workers in many fields combining their expertise in research, documentation, stylistic analysis, and instrumental analysis to come to valuable conclusions about craftsmanship, production and use in different cultures. She did not present three case studies that used minimal resources to get the most out of technical research. If the title of this talk had more accurately described its content, I doubt I would have been nearly so disappointed by it - I was looking forward to a low-tech talk.
I leave you with this succinct summation by a colleague during the resultant discussions: “it’s not a problem to have kit, but the presence of resources can reduce the creativity of your operation - many papers presented at AIC are resource heavy and thinking light. Is this a checking your privilege moment?”
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