The Interdisciplinary Future Of Archaeochemistry

The Sulawesi study is a product of what can be called the archaeochemistry revolution — the application of chemical and molecular analysis methods to archaeological questions.

This revolution has been building for decades and is now producing results that would have been impossible a generation ago.

The detection of specific compounds in ancient organic materials — dental tissue, ceramic residues, burial soils, ancient food remains — has become a powerful tool for answering questions about ancient behavior that traditional archaeology could not address.

Ancient pottery sherds can be analyzed for lipid residues that reveal what was cooked or stored in them.