in february and march 2005, the archaeological survey of righ saray desert in the northern part of varzaneh was conducted. ancient rigsray is an area which has been buried by the sandy dunes at the western margin of the marsh gavkhoni. during this project nearly 100 archaeological sites were identified and recorded. one of the most important sites identified by the survey is saba 9 which is the...

the climatic conditions of sistan plain and its coexistence paved the way for settlement of human populations, establishment of various residential sites and perhaps more importantly, emergence of civilizations that have given rise to the great cities such as shahri-sukhteh and tang-e gholaman.   although the accumulation of residential areas in the plain during different times and their proxim...

Metal fiducial markers are often implanted on the back of the eye before proton therapy to improve target localization and reduce patient setup errors. We aim to detect characteristic x-ray emissions from metal targets during proton therapy to verify the treatment range accuracy. Initially gold was chosen for its biocompatibility properties. Proton-induced x-ray emissions (PIXE) from a 15 mm di...

Bone collagen is a well-characterized and generally robust protein that plays a key role in both radiometric dating and stable isotopic reconstruction of paleodiet. To be useful for such purposes, however, analyzed collagen must be relatively taphonomically unaltered. To date, little research has been conducted to document the taphonomic fate of bone collagen from archaeological sites in the tr...

PIXE (Proton Induced X-ray Emission) is a well-known method for elemental analyses of specimens in applied studies. In this paper, we report results of an application of PIXE in trace-element analysis of normal and vitrified carnations in vitro culture. Experiments were performed to study the vitrification in connection with the trace elements in carnation tissues. About two hundred PIXE spectr...

Research into the processes that form the archaeological record is an important component of archaeological practice because formation processes are a key link between the materials that archaeologists study and prehistoric societies that they seek to understand. Computational modeling is a comparatively new technology with potential to provide new insights into the dynamics of human societies,...

Several radioactive particles from the Palomares area have been analyzed with the nuclear microprobe of the National Accelerator Centre (CNA) in Seville exploring the advantages of combining -PIXE using a 5.5MeV 4He beam with conventional -PIXE analysis using 3MeV protons. The measurements performed with the -particles are more sensitive to the sample surface, while the results collected with p...

The timing of the first entry of humans into North America is still hotly debated within the scientific community. Excavations conducted at Bluefish Caves (Yukon Territory) from 1977 to 1987 yielded a series of radiocarbon dates that led archaeologists to propose that the initial dispersal of human groups into Eastern Beringia (Alaska and the Yukon Territory) occurred during the Last Glacial Ma...