Olympus NDT is pleased to announce the award of an Education and Research Grant to the Anthropology Department at Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin, USA.
Professor Emily Stovel and Dr. William Whitehead, members of the South American Material Culture Collaboration, plan to analyze ancient South American ceramic materials at the Smithsonian Institution as part of a multidisciplinary study investigating the ancient cultures of Northern Chile.
They will be using an Olympus DELTA handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer to recover elemental data on over 1000 ceramic vessels held in the collections. The collaboration will use this information to study trade, cultural formation processes, culture contact and ethnicity as part of a multiyear study using advanced, non-destructive technology to recover data from ceramics held in a number of museums in the United States, Chile, and Argentina. Drs. Stovel and Whitehead are creating a database of information to be shared with the archaeological community from this work and plan on expanding their work to other countries in South America in the future. They are developing a standard protocol for their handheld XRF technology work and will continue to publish results from their studies.
The Olympus DELTA Handheld XRF analyzers offer cutting edge electronics and X-Ray technology, as well as innovative software features that make DELTA analyzers fast, user-friendly, and easy-to-operate. These analyzers are engineered for continual use, achieving thousands of tests per day in some applications, even in extreme environments. Every DELTA is engineered for rugged toughness and analytical precision for alloy, metal and elemental measurements.
For more information on DELTA Handheld XRF Analyzers for Education and Research, please visit http://www.olympus-ims.com/en/xrf-xrd/delta-handheld/delta-r-and-d/.