El análisis de fosfatos en la Arqueología. Historia y perspectivas

Abstract

Chemical analysis, especially phosphate analysis, has received a good deal of attention in recent times. The history of the applications of this analysis show that most early the papers were devoted to the establishment of the analytical procedure, At the same times some of thee applications uy to confirm the relationship between human settlement and chemical content in soils, There are some later attemps to go further in the interpretation of results. In these cases phosphate analysis is used in conjunction with chemical and geophysical data to complement the information. During the last decade the first attempts to relate the chemical content of floors with human activities were carried out, The aim of this article is to show that the most important use of the chemical analysis is as a tool for the study of floors in order to locate activity areas in households. A review ofrecently published articles show the promising results of this application.