NCPTT’s Andrew Ferrell and Kirk Cordell served as guest instructors for the University of Florida’s Preservation Institute: Nantucket. They lectured on the role NCPTT plays in facilitating research and training in innovative technologies for historic preservation.

Particular topics included NCPTT’s grants program, sustainable preservation, preservation trades training, and disaster response and planning for cultural resources.

Today we are joining NCPTT’s Jason Church as he speaks with Claire Dean of Dean Associates of Conservation Services about using lasers to remove graffiti from rock art. Rock art or rock imagery is the common term for paintings and carvings on rock and in North America that is mostly associated with native communities.

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A variety of materials and methods have been used to preserve ceramic vessels. Many have proven successful, while others are damaging. Monitoring and evaluation of past treatments is a documented research priority in the conservation field. The Arizona State Museum (ASM) has examined, recorded and analyzed the performance of past treatments on 20,000 southwest vessels and a modern storage facility.

This research has afforded the opportunity to look forwards and backwards to identify patterns in archaeological methods, museum management and conservation.

New Philadelphia, Illinois was the first town platted and legally registered by an African American in the United States. Founded by Frank McWorter, a former slave, in 1836, this town grew as a demographically integrated community through the late nineteenth century. The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) awarded funding of $14,800 to test the usefulness of low-altitude aerial surveys employing high resolution thermal imaging at New Philadelphia.

The success of this technique will provide an extremely useful resource for applications on numerous similar sites throughout the nation.

This project involved developing a new method for using the chemical content of freshwater mussel shell as a means of sourcing prehistoric, shell-tempered pottery and shell artifacts to their places of origin. By extension, this means that prehistoric trade and exchange networks can be mapped out.

Because each waterway is chemically different to some extent, and because mussels incorporate the chemicals into their shells, it is theoretically possible to identify where shell artifacts or shell-tempered pottery was made by chemically analyzing the shell.

Some natural science specimens and ethnographic artifacts in museums were historically treated with arsenic and mercury salts. This has created an environmental concern for museum workers and the public who may be exposed to these toxins. In addition, museums are frequently being asked to return sacred objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

This report is an overview and assessment of the cultural landscape of the Tongue River Valley, its historic themes and cultural resource site types. Designed to accompany other project deliverables (the video documentary and map-based digital archive), the goal of the project is to demonstrate the national, state and local significance of the layers of prehistory and history located in one small corner of southeastern Montana.

The need is clear for rapid, wide-area, planning level inventories of archaeological sites, which are disappearing rapidly because of development and looting. Inventory makes preservation through monitoring and proactive planning possible.

Successful protocols for the use of sophisticated synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technologies for such inventories in certain environments were formulated recently.

This grading protocol is a review of historical wood testing and standards development, wood condition assessment basics, and a query-based wood grading program. The goal of this protocol is to change the typical decision-making process by giving engineers and architects the means to better understand the grading of wood members in relation to building code requirements.

Today Andy Ferrell speaks with Nancy Finegood, executive director of the Michigan Historic Preservation Network. NCPTT recently published online a guide titled “Introducing Preservation Trades to High School Students” which grew out of via work with Detroit’s Randolph’s Career and Technical Center.

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Save the Date for IPTW-ITES 2009 from August 25-29, 2009 in Leadville, Colorado. The 13th annual International Preservation Trades Workshop will be held by the Preservation Trades Network in partnership with the Colorado Mountain College Historic Preservation program. Sponsored in part by NCPTT.

If you’re interested in sharing your skills and knowledge as a “hands on” demonstrator at IPTW 2009 submit a demonstration proposal online. Some travel assistance may be available for demonstrators. Contact Rudy Christian at rchristian@ptn.org for details.

Today in The Preservation Technology Podcast, NCPTT visits with Ruth Tringham, one of the founders of the University of California Berkley the People in Multimedia Authoring Center for Teaching in Anthropology at Berkley (MACTiA). As a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkley Ruth uses an online virtual environment called Second Life in her teaching.

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This past November the Friends of NCPTT and the National Trust for Historic Preservation convened a small group of experts to discuss historic preservation and environmental sustainability.

After two days of intense discussions, the group developed the core of the Pocantico Proclamation on Sustainability and Historic Preservation. While a good starting point to further discussion on sustainability of the built environment, we ask that you review the Pocantico Proclamation and add your comments. Input from the broader preservation community is critical. We appreciate your participation.

David W. Morgan, Chief of Archeology and Collections at NCPTT, introduces the 19th annual National Park Service Geophysics course taught by Steve De Vore. This video includes a description of the course and commentary by participants. Steve has assembled about 10 different instructors and about 18-20 participants that are providing classroom opportunities at NCPTT and are using Los Adaes as a field-training site.

Transcript and show notes for the Preservation Technology Podcast, Episode 3: Rapid Documentation of Historic Resources with Barrett Kennedy.
Download Episode 3 as an mp3 or subscribe via iTunes.

Preservation Institute: Nantucket (PI:N) is an interdisciplinary program that exposes participants to the theories and methodologies of international cultural heritage conservation and the research, documentation, and management of current and potential World Heritage sites.

Kirk Cordell and Andrew Ferrell of NCPTT will be guest lecturing at the Preservation Institute: Nantucket.

The registration deadline for this workshop is April 24, 2009. The workshop will provide guidance for professionals and students in the use of diagnostic nondestructive testing for historic structures. It is intended for technically oriented graduates and practicing engineers, architects, preservation consultants, and contractors who are not familiar with this subject area.

NCPTT awarded 12 projects, totaling $262,500, for preservation technology and training awards to universities, non-profit organizations, and state agencies.

The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) developed the Architectural Records Symposium: Managing and Preserving Design Records to improve practices for preserving and providing access to architectural records in museums, archives, libraries, and historic sites throughout the country.

Swelling clays in stone can generate damaging stresses during a wetting or a drying cycle, which leads to deterioration of building stones such as Portland Brownstone.