Short Description
Thermo Fisher Scientific Orbitrap Exploris GC gas chromatographer with attached mass spectrometer and autosampler
Contact Person
Dimitra Kourtidou MSc, Ph.D.
Research Services
The Archaeological Sciences unit of the Austrian Archaeological Institute is dedicated to the interdisciplinary analysis of archaeological artifacts and ecofacts. In-house expertise includes lithics and marble research, ceramic/clay/mortar and color archaeometry, archaeogeochemistry as well as archaeoichthyology, archaeothanatology and histotaphonomy, archaeobotany and expertise in the field of food archaeology.
The GC-MS system is used to detect and classify mainly organic molecules preserved on and in archaeological artifacts and ecofacts.
Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure
The device is used at the OeAI primarily for the analysis of organic residues (ORA) from archaeological artefacts, with a focus on lipophilic substances. This concerns, for example, the detection of specific fatty acids in ceramics in order to determine the types of use of cooking ceramics. A large number of marker substances can be used to answer specific questions in other contexts, such as the use of waxes, resins and other adhesives, the characterisation of wine and olive presses via soil samples, the chemical detection of specific cultivated plants, etc.