Analysis contributes valuable insights into many archaeological questions, from technological choice to social organisation.
Most methods are non-destructive in nature, such as X-ray spectroscopy, or micro-destructive (requiring removal of only a tiny portion of the sample).
A study conducted by the department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at Weizmann Institute of Science and the department of Archaeology at the University of Haifia analyzed the chemical composition and the mass of different denominations of Euro coinage.
After initial sporadic work, archaeometallurgy was more widely institutionalised in the 1960s and 70s, with research groups in Britain (The British Museum, the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Institute for Archeo-Metallurgical Studies (iams)), Germany (Deutsches Bergbau Museum) and the US (MIT and Harvard).
Specialisations within metallurgical focus on metallography of finished objects, mineralogy of waste products such as slag and manufacturing studies.