ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025 33 (CT) and micro-CT can offer; they are simply jaw-dropping. Then there is the myth of noninvasive analysis, where there is a head-on collision between the request for information and the forbidding of the only approach that would answer it—sample-based analyses of all kinds. This may all hark back to the “giant” samples taken 60 or 70 years ago. A final aspect is statistics, where I avoid anything but the most basic approach. On the whole, change here has been for the better. When I first attended conferences in the mid-1970s, cluster analysis was perhaps the most popular technique, and I came to believe that every paper had to have a dendrogram to ward off the evil eye. Keep it simple, because the nature of the data is such that they will not stand for anything more elaborate. FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS Where am I headed now? Apart from completing a Ph.D. in landscape archaeology, my main interest now is in historical metallurgy, the metallurgy of the industrial revolution. I want to explore questions around 18th century experiments on new alloys, and the performance of structural materials. Also, it has become very clear that the same correlations between compositions, typology, and distribution apply as much in the 18th century AD as in the 18th century BC. And there will always be a microscope by my desk. For more information: Dr. Peter Northover, honorary research associate, Metallurgy and Archaeology, University of Oxford, October House, Stonehill Lane, Southmoore, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX13 5HU, U.K., peter.northover@ retired.ox.ac.uk. or over 1000 for a project on 3rd century AD Roman coinage. For a post-excavation project there is no technical reason not to analyze everything, the only constraint being the budget. TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS Over 50 years there have been many developments in instrumentation, and new techniques have been introduced. Even in optical metallography the changes have been transformative, such as the 100× dry objective, digital cameras, stage automation, and software for image analysis. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) came of age—my first encounter was in my master’s year 1969-70—at a time when I was using 10 ASA glass plate negatives from the best quality micrographs! The advent of personal computing greatly simplified data processing but I took a long time to abandon paper tables and a pocket calculator for getting a very intimate knowledge of my data. More recently, I have the privilege of being married to a metallurgist who has a special interest in texture analysis using electron back-scattered diffraction and neutron diffraction. This interest has greatly enhanced my understanding of the history of objects as diverse as silver vessels from Schliemann’s excavations at Troy to the copper bolts holding Nelson’s warships together. These methods are still not widely appreciated enough in archaeometallurgy because, as I perceive it, of the gap separating it from the mainstream of metallurgical science. This is something I hope can be rectified by initiatives like ASM’s Archaeometallurgy Committee. I believe the greatest satisfaction archaeometallurgy has brought me has come from being involved with materials (basically face-centered cubic metals) rather than a period or place. I have been able to study materials from Norway in the north to the Balearics in the south; and from Ireland in the west to China in the east by way of Estonia and Lebanon. The friendships and working partnerships that have been formed continue to sustain me, not to mention the pleasures of travel, by rail wherever possible. I have heard it said that genius is expressed as an infinite capacity for taking trains, and archaeo- metallurgy has allowed me to do just that. Even better, it has allowed me to work on historic railway material! Despite these pleasures there are things that trouble me and can be a hindrance. One of the biggest is the difficulty of accessing quality radiography, especially with the incredible results that computed tomography Micrograph of a copper nail from HMS Amethyst, 36-gun frigate commissioned in 1799 and wrecked in a storm in Plymouth Sound in 1811. The sample contains copper with arsenic, bismuth, lead, and silver impurities; all of the bismuth and some of the arsenic and lead are present as oxide inclusions. Image of a solidified droplet of silver—5% copper alloy from grave goods, which melted on a funeral pyre and solidified in the ashes outside the Roman city of Verulamium (modern day St. Albans, England) circa 50 AD. GET ENGAGED, GET INVOLVED, GET CONNECTED The ASM Archaeometallurgy Committee welcomes new members. See page 24 in this issue or email scott.henry@asminternational.org.
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