December 21st 2018

Two new papers for ArchaeChemis: the first one, by our Gianni, prof. Pastor and our new mate Alessia, PhD student at the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia, on the analysis of the human remains of Las Peñas necropolis, published by Archivo de Prehistoria Levantina; the second one, in which our Mirco is coauthor, is the report of the last excavation of Cocina cave and has been published by SAGVNTVM.

December 15th 2018

December 15th 2014 - December 15th 2018

Four years of research with ArchaeChemis!

November 21st 2018

Next Friday our Gianni will participate at the 3rd Workshop on "Advances in Separation Techniques" with the oral communication "Rare earth elements fingerprinting anthropogenic activities and driving chemical processes" which will deal with the results of his research about the effectiveness of rare earth elements as markers of human activities in archaeological contexts. For those who want to attend to the speech, it will be given in the salón de actos of the Faculty of Analytical Chemistry of the University of Valencia at 10:15.

You can download the program of the workshop here: https://www.uv.es/clecem/noticia2.pdf.

October 26th 2018

This Wednesday our Mirco collected samples of soil from Mesolithic and Neolithic strata in Cocina Cave excavated in the 2017 and 2018 archaeological excavation campaigns. Our Gianni showed the first promising results of the analysis of the soils from Cocina Cave during the meeting of the Spanish Society of Analytical Chemistry of the last year; thus, these samples will allow us to have a deeper insight in the development of the anthropic activity in this important site and test the effectiveness of rare earth elements as markers.

Moreover, we forgot to inform you about the participation of ArchaeChemis at the 20th Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (Cranfield, September 14th-16th) with a collaborative work with the anthropologist Dr. Paola Ponce (University of York). The poster deals with the detection of mercury (Hg) in human remains which show signs of syphils buried between 17th and 19th century in the Queen's Chapel of the Savoy (London), since mercury was used in syphilis therapy, and the analyses want to clarify if the presence Hg could be caused by this or by post depositional process.

October 3rd 2018

Meeting with the team of Cocina Cave, where we had a survey to discuss the soil sampling, and three extra pictures from the little hiking to the Levantine rock art site of Cinto de la Ventana.

September 10th 2018

Let's start the academic year experimenting on rock painting together with our Esther Montalvo from CNRS of Toulouse.

July 27th 2018

July the 27th, sunny day, 37 °C: the optimal weather for a field survey looking at geologic chert in the surroundings of Llombai for our Mirco's PhD thesis. However, we found an outcrop!

July 26th 2018

Hi! The University of Valencia made a piece about ArchaeChemis. You can watch it following the link below.

July 25th 2018

We are very grateful to Ulldecona Council and Tourist Office for the amazing welcome and invitation to give the speech "Methodology in the Analysis of the Pigments of the Levantine Rock Art" for the XX Anniversary of the Abric de l'Ermita as UNESCO World Heritage.

July 22nd 2018

Congratulations to our MSc students Álvaro and Javi for the brilliant presentation of their final projects!

July 13th 2018

Congratulations to our Sonia for her speech at the X Iberian Spectroscopy Conference (X CIE) and the XXVI National Spectroscopy Meeting (RNE) (Lisbon, 9-11 July 2018):

Rubio S., Gallello G., Pastor A., Orozco T. Development of direct analysis methodologies for dolerite prehistoric objects

The speech dealt with the development of a methodology for provenance studies of prehistoric dolerite tools based on non-destructive analytical techniques such as raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and data processing through chemometrics techniques.

... And congratulations also to our mates Lidia Herreros Chavez, Aitor Sorribes Soriano and Daniel Gallart Mateu who took part to the conference!

From the book of abstracts.

July 3rd 2018

We carried out the fieldwork on the Levantine rock paintings of the area of Ulldecona and Mas de Barberans (Tarragona), part of the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula that was declared World Heritage by Unesco in 1998.

The work comprehended the first archaeometric analysis through a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF) of the paintings of Abric de l'Ermita and Abric de Cocó de la Graya.

The crew that took part to the fieldwork included:

• Gianni Gallello (University of York, University of Valencia)

• Esther López-Montalvo (CNRS)

• Angel Morales-Rubio (University of Valencia)

• Mirco Ramacciotti (University of Valencia)

• Clodoaldo Roldán García (University of Valencia)

• Sonia Rubio Barberá (University of Valencia)

We would like to thank the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, the City Councils of Ulldecona and of Mas de Barberans, Agustí Vericat, director of the Center of Interpretationg of the Rock Art of Ulldecona, Pepa Subirats, responsible of the Centre of Rural Development - Museum of Pauma and technician of the City Council of Mas de Barberans (Tarragona), Pep Castells i Campa, archaeologist of the Government of Catalonia, and Joan Martinez, territorial archaeologist.

May 31st 2018

In the last weeks two papers come out from the collaboration of ArchaeChemis with Italian CNR and Earth Sciences Department of the University of Pisa. If you want to take a look:

• M. Lezzerini, S. Raneri, S. Pagnotta, S. Columbu, G. Gallello (2018). Archaeometric study of mortars from the Pisa’s Cathedral Square (Italy). Measurement, 126, 322-331. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2018.05.057)

• S. Pagnotta, M. Lezzerini, B. Campanella, G. Gallello, E. Grifoni, S. Legnaioli, G. Lorenzetti, F. Poggialini, S. Raneri, A. Safi, V. Palleschi (2018). Fast quantitative elemental mapping of highly inhomogeneous materials by micro-Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy. Spectrochimica Acta Part B Atomic Spectroscopy, 146, 9-15. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sab.2018.04.018)

May 17th 2018

Hello, the discovery of the cause of death of the two Italian humanists Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano had a great coverage by Spanish media. Thus, since it looks like a very popular subject, we propose again the paper which you can find at this link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jflm.2018.03.016

Gallello, Gianni, et al. "Poisoning histories in the Italian renaissance: the case of Pico Della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano." Journal of forensic and legal medicine 56 (2018): 83-89.

Furthermore, we add the links to the articles:

• University of Valencia webpage: "The cause of death of two important humanists from the Italian Renaissance has been identified"

• University of Valencia webpage: "Identifican las causas de la muerte de dos de los humanistas más importantes del Renacimiento italiano"

• COPE: "Hallan pruebas sobre las causas de la muerte de dos humanistas italianos"

• Levante: "Un estudio de la UV descubre cómo murieron envenenados dos humanistas del siglo XV"

• El Periodic: "Identifiquen les causes de la mort de dos dels humanistes més importants del Renaixement italià"

• La Vanguardia: "Resuelto el misterio sobre la muerte de dos grandes humanistas del Renacimiento"

• Las Provincias: "La UV esclarece la misteriosa muerte de dos humanistas italianos"

• Europapress: "Así murieron dos de los humanistas más importantes del Renacimiento Italiano"

• NCYT: "Identifican las causas de la muerte de dos de los humanistas más importantes del Renacimiento italiano"

• ABC: "El humanista del Renacimiento Pico della Mirandola fue asesinado con arsénico"

• ABC - Comunidad Valenciana: "Identifiquen les causes de la mort de dos dels humanistes més importants del Renaixement italià"

• rtve: "Un estudio identifica las causas de la muerte de dos de los humanistas más importantes del Renacimiento italiano"

• 24ESPAÑA: "Identifiquen les causes de la mort de dos dels humanistes més importants del Renaixement italià"

May 10th 2018

Good morning, our work about ancient mortars from Sagunto (Valencia, Spain) archaeological excavations has been published by the Journal of Spectroscopy! The open access paper can be downloaded here: https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9736547

26th April 2018

Good afternoon, since there is never enough work to do, in these days, we are also analysing the bronze statuettes of Sagunto's Archaeological Museum through the portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF). We are going to develop a non-destructive method to analyse this kind of samples and obtain reliable data, moreover, let's see if we discover something new about these artefacts!

April 19th 2018

Meanwhile, we are preparing a project on the Levantine rock paintings in the area of Tarragona (Catalonia)!

March 29th 2018

Good afternoon! We are glad to inform you that the paper about the multidisciplinary study carried out on the remains of the three important Italian humanists Pico della Mirandola, Angelo Poliziano and Girolamo Benivieni by our Gianni Gallello and Agustín Pastor, Miguel de la Guardia and several other contributors from Italian institutions and universities was accepted by the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. It is still in press, but you can download and read the paper on Science Direct.

March 28th 2018

Hello! In the end, after the plates for the jaw crusher (see the pictures on our Instagram page), we now have got tungsten carbide (WC) vessels and balls for the ball mill. Tungsten carbide is characterised by high strength and hardness, and its Mohs hardness is 9 (diamond's one is 10), thus, it is able to pulverise also the hardest rocks such as chert.

February 20th 2018

Good morning, today we have a lot of news.

First of all, the past week Gianni started his training and his analysis with an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer equipped with a laser ablation sampler (LA-ICP-MS) at the laboratories of the Nottingham headquarters of British Geological Survey, institution that is collaborating with MATRIX project. The analysis, focused in particular on rare earth elements, are the central part of a geochemical microstratigraphic study of thin section of soils from the archaeological site of Engaruka (Tanzania), collected and prepared in collaboration of AAREA project.

In second instance, Sonia, Agustín and Jorge went to the Archaeological Museum of Sagunto to collect the samples for the archaeometric study of Roman amphoras, which is part of Sonia's PhD thesis and of Jorge's BSc final work.

In the end, we are finishing the preparation of the chert samples from the Serpis Valley (Alicante) and we are starting up the ICP-MS for the first geochemical analysis of trace elements and rare earth elements , which are part of Mirco's PhD thesis.

February 2nd 2018

Good morning, the second semester has started and many students have begun to work on their Bsc and Msc final works.

This year we have the pleasure to direct three students of the University of Valencia in the final part of their course of study.

Two final works are related to our collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of Sagunto: Javier Fragoso Nuñez is going to analyse the bronze statuettes of Sagunto for his Msc final work (Msc in Experimental Techniques in Chemistry), while Jorge Medina's Bsc one (Bsc in Chemistry) deals with the discrimination of different amphoras conserved in the Museum through chemical analysis. Álvaro Hernández Sánchez, Msc student of Experimental Techniques in Chemistry, is going to analyse the archaeological sediments and the basalts that come from Engaruka, the archaeological site of Tanzania which is currently being studied by MATRIX and AAREA projects.

January 29th 2018

Good morning, last Friday our Gianni gave a speech at the Research Forum that took place at the Department of Archaeology of the University of York, which is an occasion to discuss about research and matters of common interest in the archaeological field with students and academic staff.

In his presentation, Gianni talked about the effectiveness of rare earth elements to retrace soils' provenance and as markers for human activities through the different cases studies that he has taken on the during his Marie Curie Fellowiship at York such as the Engaruka (Tanzania), Konso (Ethiopia) and Serpis Valley (Spain) ones.

January 13th 2018

Good afternoon! The work about the votive terracottas of the Serreta Sanctuary by Gianni Gallello and Ignasi Grau Mira (University of Alicante) was published with the title "Lo que no se ve en la arcilla: Análisis del componente mineral por XRF de las terracotas del santuario" in the monograph "El santuario ibérico y romano de la Serreta (Alcoi, Cocentaina, Penàguila). Prácticas rituales y paisaje en el área central de la Contestania" edited by Ignasi Grau Mira himself, and by Iván Amorós López and Josep Maria Segura Marí.

In this multidisciplinary study, the provenance of the terracottas of the Sanctuary was clarified by crossing archaeological observations and chemical data obtained through non-destructive methods, in particular, by carring out direct measurements on the artifacts' surfaces through a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer.

January 11th 2018

Hello! It's a little late, but we want to tell you that a work of Gianni Gallello and Prof. Teresa Orozco Kölher came out in the book "Raw materials exploitation in Prehistory: Sourcing, processing and distribution" published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

The chapter concerns the provenance study of lithic artifacts of dolerite through the analysis of major elements, minor elements and, in particular, rare earth elements to recognize the outcrops of origin of the raw materials.

We use this opportunity also to wish you a Happy New Year.