This will be slotted into the literature review section of an archaeology thesis that is looking at the bone chemistry of early South American populations. The rest of the thesis is written in layman’s terms, but with professional wording and reference to scientific text.

The format should be:

Introduction: Introducing elemental analyses and their archaeological applications (what elements in particular have been useful to archaeological studies? Introducing Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (what is it? what has it’s primary use been?, how is it used in archaeology?).

Brief History: A brief history of elemental analyses via LA-ICP-MS.

Applications in Archaeology: An outline of the applications of elemental analyses (by LA-ICP-MS) to archaeological sites, with brief reference to case studies that illustrate its use.

References: Only peer reviewed journals and books will be accepted as references.

I have 5 papers that I can send, which outline the topic above in an archaeological context.
They are:

1. Castro et al. 2010 Application of laser ablation (LA-ICP-SF-MS) for the elemental analysis of bone and teeth samples for discrimination purposes.

2. Horstwood et al. 2008 Determination of Sr isotopes in calcium phosphates using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
and their application to archaeological tooth enamel.

3. Durrant and Ward 2005 Recent biological and environmental applications of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS).

4. Neff 2010 Laser ablation in archaeology

5. Reynard and Balter 2014 Trace elements and their isotopes in bones and teeth: Diet, environments, diagenesis, and dating of archeological and paleontological samples.

NB: This chapter will be put through anti-plagarism software upon me receiving it.