The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), Cane River National Heritage Area (CRNHA), and Cane River Creole National Historic Park (CARI) will showcase recent research at the 9th annual Preservation in Your Community (PIYC) on August 11, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. at NCPTT’s Lee H. Nelson Hall on Northwestern’s campus.

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.

Recent research reveals bacteria may be the biggest ally in the fight to preserve ancient artifacts from erosion and deterioration.

This project is about saving historic wooden artifacts in cemeteries. Cemeteries are important repositories of local and national history, valued not only for the stories they tell, but also for their emotional and civic connections.

Prehistoric Hopewellian peoples of Ohio (ca. 150 B.C. – A.D. 400) produced fine geometric and representational art that played central roles in their social organization and religious practices.

More than $165,000 will fund research to protect America’s historic legacy as part of the National Center for Preservation Technology & Training’s PTT Grants program.

On October 4, NCPTT hosted one of the statewide activities celebrating Louisiana Archaeology Week.

When Union ships sunk the English blockade runner Modern Greece off the coast of North Carolina in 1862, Confederates at nearby Fort Fisher wasted little time in salvaging munitions from the vessel. Nearly 150 years later, what they left behind is helping make history in preservation research.

Eric Shindelholz, formerly The Mariners’ Museum, successfully concluded his grant research and submitted his final deliverables regarding his project to investigate the use of emerging technologies for drying waterlogged archeological wood artifacts.