EASONS

FEATURE
years,” Freund says, adding: “Carbon 14 dating was done on
multiple organic samples that showed definitively that the
materials were from 6,000 years ago.”
What did this ancient city look like? “We’re seeing the
unique architecture of Atlantis on a big sand bar,” Freund
says. “Subsurface mapping has revealed there are hundreds of
columns off the coast of Spain in the middle of the Atlantic.
They didn’t get there by accident,” he insists.
Vintage Vessels
Martha Risser, associate professor
at Trinity College, combines her passion
for the classical world with new scientific
techniques. Since 2010, she and her
students have worked on a dig in Israel
dubbed the Akko Archaeology, Heritage,
and History Project. Caesarea Maritima,
a Roman- through Crusader-era city in
Israel, is among other sites she’s explored.
She’s currently finishing a book that she’s
sending to the printers this spring.
Modern-day wine drinkers will be
interested in the pieces of pottery she
studies in Greece. No longer content
with merely piecing back together
the broken remnants of old vessels,
archaeologists can now extract tiny amounts of grape DNA
stuck within them. With the help of laboratory tests, they can
figure out if an ancient Hellenic culture had a penchant for
pinot grigio or a taste for cabernet sauvignon.
“You used to need a giant clean lab for work that is now
done in the field,” she says. “We’re finding kraters [vessels],
which were used for mixing wine and water at dinner
parties. [The Greeks] were importing a lot of wine. As it is
today, it may have been seen as a status symbol. We see a
lot of evidence of alcohol consumption,” Risser adds lightheartedly.
Wine vessels are especially important because the pottery
was often stamped with the season the grapes were harvested,
the year, and the name of the reigning political official at the
time.
“How was this pottery deposited? How were people
living?” asks Risser, who travels to Isthmia, Greece, for
answers. She says studying pottery sherds [the more accurate
term for what many call “shards”] in ancient cultures is akin
to analyzing garbage to assess modern culture. “We study
what’s left behind and learn from people’s refuse,” she says.
Whether chasing
the legend of the
lost city of Atlantis
or mapping historic
stone walls right
here in Connecticut,
archeologists have
never been more
equipped to make
discoveries.
Her work may at first seem like traditional rooting
around in dusty remains, but Risser’s approach is extremely
contemporary.
“Archaeology has changed as a discipline,” she says.
Global Information Systems (GIS) and Light Detection and
Ranging (LIDAR) are her everyday tools of the trade. While
digging in an area that was once a blacksmith shop, Risser’s
team taps other technologies to determine what kinds of
metals were used; this adds to knowledge
of ancient trade routes.
“We’re finding materials in the soil,
collecting slag, sifting the soil, and passing
magnets over it so the iron fragments pop
up,” she says. Chemical testing allows for
detailed data from the iron fragments,
which was not possible before. “Now we
can get all the different byproducts of
metal working, seeing where their ore was
coming from. Five years ago, we couldn’t
do that,” she explains.
Scientific CSI
You might call taphonomy a
“cousin” of archaeology: It’s the study
of how living things decompose after
death, becoming part of the fossil record
archaeologists might unearth. For forensic taphonomist
Christopher O’Brien of the University of New Haven, it’s
all about modern, and sometimes urban, applications of
new investigative methods. His findings are applicable in a
surprising array of court cases.
“A forensic archaeologist is a really narrow job
description,” O’Brien says of this related field. “If we can’t
take somebody to court, we don’t care. If you can’t apply
[findings] directly, you’re not doing forensics,” he explains.
Just as a forensic archaeologist might study bones to show
whether or not indigenous people have ancestral claims to
certain lands, a forensic taphonomist is interested in what lies
hidden.
“We’re using spatial mapping technology, which means
you can scan, map, and [digitize]… everything from buried
remains to surface scatter,” he says. “Of course, you can
still use a string and tape measure if you choose, but total
station (a modern surveying instrument) is now your point of
reference. Spatial analysis was around 20 years ago, but now
it’s highly automated,” he says.
Another new advancement is called digital touch DNA.
Seasons of West Hartford • SPRING 2017 29