PXRF Rock Art Study
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In 2013, the CAI was awarded a grant from the National Geographic Society (NGS) to conduct a portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) analysis of the pigments in up to 10 Native American pictograph sites in southern Illinois. The sample sites contained pictographs believed to date to the Mississippian (N = 8) and historic or post-1673 (N = 2) periods. Working in cooperation with Dr. Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, CAI staff collected data from a number of pictographs at four of the sites in spring 2013. We plan to visit the remainder of the sites in February 2014 and submit the results of the analyses to the National Geographic Society by summer 2014. We also will present a paper giving the results of the PXRF analysis at the Society of American Archaeology (SAA) meetings in Austin, Texas, in April 2014.
Dr. Jan Simek (white hat) and Doug Kosik (CAI) conducting PXRF analysis of possible historic period paintings at the Parsons site in southern Illinois.
Parsons site pictograph