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Exploring Potential Applications Of Portable X-Ray Fluorescence On Earthen Materials From Southeast Mesoamerica, David Rafael Mccormick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of geochemical analysis for characterization studies of archaeological material has been increasing for decades. In recent years, advancements in X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrumentation have led to hand-held portable XRF (pXRF) instruments capable of on-site, rapid, non-destructive analysis. The addition of pXRF to the archaeologist's toolkit has the potential to revolutionize geochemical characterization studies as research design can be informed by field analysis, once off-limits museum collections may now be analyzable, and data can be gathered on in-situ objects without disturbing their context. This new instrumentation has shown promise in characterization studies on a variety of archaeological materials, including …