• AECOM
  • Archaeological Laboratory: Material Culture

    Archaeological Laboratory

    Material Culture

    The AECOM archaeological laboratory in Burlington, New Jersey is fully staffed and equipped. The facility has 3,500 square feet of artifact processing, and storage space. The artifact processing space includes areas for washing, drying, labeling, basic conservation, analyzing, and storing artifacts. The lab is set up to process archaeological collections in as expeditious a manner as possible and is also capable of conducting specialized operations, such as flotation, electrolysis, and microscopic analysis.

    The laboratory staff members have over a half-century of experience in material culture research and have published on a variety of topics. They have helped AECOM create computer catalogues for ceramic and glass vessels as well as all other artifacts, developed a computerized numbering system for the inventory control of artifacts from historic sites, and analyzed the artifacts from numerous sites ranging from the late seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.

    The lab routinely processes and analyzes archaeological assemblages for reports and publications from both prehistoric and historic sites. The historic-period sites have ranged from small domestic structures to large urban areas, early industrial sites, military battlefields and cemeteries. Prehistoric sites from the Archaic to Contact periods have also been studied. Our archaeological laboratory has analyzed and processed nearly two million artifacts over the last decade. We have worked with numerous collections from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Maryland as well as with collections from other parts of the eastern United States, and Midwest, and the Caribbean. Our clients include State and Federal agencies, in particular Departments of Transportation and the National Park Service, and corporate entities.

    A recent large-scale project that the lab has undertaken is the artifact processing, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological assemblages from Interstate 95 in the Northern Liberties, Kensington and Port Richmond sections of Philadelphia. Other recent projects include New York City Hall Park, New York, Faneuil Hall, Boston, and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.