I’m currently at the 39th International Symposium on Archaeometry in Leuven, Belgium, where I have a poster to present. I’ll be writing a proper conference review when I return, but in the mean time I’ll be making informal collections of the tweets and discussing the conference here on a daily basis using Storify. The following is from Monday, and is unfortunately only a brief taste of the conference as I lacked the ability to tweet for much of the day.
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The conference started at 9am on Monday, with the Opening Ceremony by this year’s organiser Patrick Degryse and the Chairman of the Standing Committee Yannis Maniatis.
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If during #ISA2012Leuven you have any questions please feel free to ask the people with blue badges for help0
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The venue itself was one of the large lecture halls at KU Leuven, the University suppporting the Conference this year. The organisers and their assistants seemed to deal with the influx of c.500 delegates very well, and things ran smoothly throughout the first day.
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Here’s the #Isa2012Leuven conference venue in all its sunny glory 🙂 http://pic.twitter.com/TN5H7O0X0
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The first and second sessions of the day were Stone, Plaster and Pigments organised by Yannis Maniatis and Robert Tykot. Full details of all the oral and poster presentations, including abstracts, can be found in the Scientific Programme PDF.
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No live tweeting from me this am/pm due to a big lack of charge in my phone, and it being WAY too hot to lug my laptop #isa2012leuven0
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The weather at Leven was absolutely amazing – Patrick joked that we were experiencing all of Belgium’s summer in one week – but this did mean that I was exhausted and ended up taking a break during much of the afternoon session.
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Currently underway at #Isa2012Leuven is a paper on Rehydroxylation as a dating method for ceramics by Moira Wilson.0
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The first afternoon session was Archaeochronometry organised by Marco Martini , which contained three papers including a really fascinating look at a new technique for dating ceramics called rehydroxylation dating.
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RT @RuthFT: You can read more on new rehydroxylation dating method at Proc.Royal Society A 2009 Wilson et al 465, 2407-2415 #Isa2012Leuven0
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So rehydroxylation looks frankly awesome as a dating technique, all pottery fired up to 1200, though organics complicate #Isa2012Leuven0
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Rehydroxylation looks particularly promising because it seems to have a low error on those samples without organic/carbon contamination.
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The final session of the day was Radiocarbon and Historical Chronologies, organised by Christopher Ramsey.
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RT @RuthFT: Now onto exciting AMS radiocarbon dating of ancient irons with Stephanie Leroy et al #Isa2012Leuven0
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I was particularly intrested in this paper, which applied standard AMS radiocarbon dating to very small samples of carbon liberated from carburised iron (ie steels/cast irons etc).
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RT @RuthFT: Ricardo Fernandes et al have done some really clever stuff to reconstruct diets from isotopes #Isa2012Leuven0
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Ricardo Fernandes was an engaging presenter, and his work was particularly noteworthy as it turned a problem – isotope ratios used for provenancing people fluctuating as a result of varying fish/animal intake – and turned it into an opportunity to examine diet patterns.
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Now we have Colin Renfrew to give keynote speech, who is as close to archaeological superstar as possible to get! #Isa2012Leuven0
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Keynote speeches are a new introduction to ISA, but Renfrew’s demonstration of the importance of using multiple techniques on sites and related materials was well received.A drinks reception followed the keynote speech, after which many attendees moved off into the nearby town to enjoy the fantastic variety of bars and restaurants. All in all a very good beginning to the conference.
Ruth Fillery-Travis 
4 thoughts on “ISA 2012 Leuven (Day 1 – Stone, Plaster, Pigments, Chronologies).”