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A Comparative Analysis Of Wet And Dry Ashing Techniques For The Extraction Of Phytoliths From Plant Material, Jeffrey Parr, Carol Lentfer, William Boyd
A Comparative Analysis Of Wet And Dry Ashing Techniques For The Extraction Of Phytoliths From Plant Material, Jeffrey Parr, Carol Lentfer, William Boyd
Jeffrey Parr
Two methods are commonly used for the extraction of phytoliths from plant material to be used as reference in the analysis of archaeological phytolith samples: (1) spodograms or dry ashings; and (2) acid digestions or wet ashing. It has been suggested that these techniques may modify the resultant samples in different ways. Dry ashing, in particular, has been implicated as a cause of shrinkage and warping in phytolith assemblages when incineration occurs at ≥450°C. The results of a morphometric comparative analysis between the dry ashing and wet ashing methods do not support these claims. This study establishes that differences in …