geochemical materials sourcing

Ali Kosh and Chagha Sefid: Geochemical obsidian Sourcing

With Dr. Ellery E. Frahm (Yale University), I have worked since 2018 to complete the geochemical sourcing and techno-typological analysis of several large historic collections of obsidian implements recovered from very early Near Eastern Neolithic farming sites by Dr. Frank Hole (Yale University) and colleagues in the 1960s. Materials are currently curated by the Yale Peabody Museum. Sites include Ali Kosh, Chagha Sefid, and Umm Qseir. This work has generated several publications in the Proceedings of the Nation Academy of Sciences and Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Links to these publications can be found under the Publications tab of this site.

Photos courtesy of the Tell Leilan Project, the author, and Dr. Frank Hole.

X-Ray flourescence calibration sets

With Dr. Ellery Frahm and a team of graduate students at Yale University, I worked on the development of a physical and chemical calibration set for pXRF and LA-ICP-MS based on a set of standardized measurements of historic bricks and geological specimens. I collected most of the data for this calibration project and was a second author on the resulting paper, which was likewise published and be found under the Publications tab.