Gerard Barrett
Gerard Barrett
Qualifications
M.Sc. Dating and Chronology, QUB 2011
Cert. British Prehistoric Pottery, Oxford Univ. Dep. Cont. Education 2011
M.Sc. Atomic and Molecular Cluster Physics, National Univ. Ireland, Maynooth 2008
B.Sc. Experimental Physics, Trinity College Dublin 2004
Postgraduate
Email: gbarrett04@qub.ac.uk
Address
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP)
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK
Current Research: Environmental Change (EC)
I am a postgrad student at Queen’s University Belfast whose research interests lie in the archaeological sciences (particularly dating techniques), prehistoric pottery, and at a more geographical level the prehistory of Ireland and North-West Europe.
Having carried out my primary studies in physics and worked in industry for a period, several years ago I committed to branch out into a field that has long interested me, that of archaeology, in particular archaeological sciences. This transition has been fruitful (reference required) to date: a masters in Dating and Chronology has been completed and doctoral research is now being undertaken. These projects focus on investigations into a potential direct-dating method for fired clay ceramics (pots, tiles, bricks, etc) known as rehydroxylation (RHX) dating, as recently proposed by Wilson et al. (2003, 2009). Given the abundance of pots and ceramics at archaeological sites, their importance in interpretation, and the limited number of direct dating methods (TL, radiocarbon dating of residues) available, any alternative/complementary method offers enormous benefits to archaeology. The following is a brief description of some of my research in this area to date.
M.Sc. Research - Rehydroxylation Dating: Investigating the Effects of Diurnal and Annual Temperature Cycles within Ireland and Great Britain
Utilising instrumental temperature data from across Ireland and Great Britain, computer modelling was carried out to explore the temporal and spatial effects diurnal and annual temperature cycles have on average rehydroxylation rates (left below). These effects, found to be significant, were also examined for several long temperature records extending back to the 1880s (right below). A methodology for correcting these effects was developed and proposed for future use.
PhD Research (ongoing) - Rehydroxylation Dating of Ceramics: Verification of Archaeological Application
The project has entered its second year with tests on-going. Using a novel setup and methodology, the projects seeks to verify a number of key properties associated with the long-term post-heating mass gain of fired clays (attributed to reabsorption of water molecules that are subsequently recombined as hydroxyls originally lost in the heating process), properties necessary for the proposed dating technique to work. These include a long-term mass gain behaviour described by a well-defined equation (t1/4-based), an Arrhenius temperature dependence, and relative humidity independence of the mass gain rate, for example. If these properties are verified as suitable, through tests on a selection of freshly-fired and reheated clays, validation of the method’s archaeological application will be obtained via use of the technique to establish the ages of brick and clay pipe samples of known age from the 17th onwards. The technique may then be extended to more complex fired clays such as those used in prehistoric ceramics.
Supervisors
Prof. Paula Reimer
Dr. Caroline Malone
Conferences:
Papers
Barrett, G. 2013. A new setup for testing the mass gain (rehydroxylation characteristics of fired clay ceramics. World Archaeology Congress-7. Dead Sea. Jordan (January 2013)
Posters
Barrett, G. 2012. Rehydroxylation dating: a new setup for testing the mass gain characteristics of fired clay ceramics. Insight from Innovation: New Light on Archaeological Ceramics. University of Southampton (October 2012)
Barrett, G. 2013. A new setup for testing the mass gain (rehydroxylation characteristics of fired clay ceramics. World Archaeology Congress-7. Dead Sea. Jordan (January 2013)
References
Wilson, M. A., Hoff, W. D., Hall, C., McKay, B. and Hiley, A. 2003. Kinetics of moisture expansion in fired clay ceramics: a (time)1/4 law. Physical Review Letters. 90 (12) 125503-(1-4)
Wilson, M. A., Carter, M. A., Hall, C., Hoff, W. D., Ince, C., Savage, S. D., McKay, B. and Betts, I. M. 2009. Dating fired-clay ceramics using long-term power law rehydroxylation kinetics. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 465 2407-2415
