Dear Danielle,
I have sieved sediments from an underwater site using the same water coming from the sea (Mediterranean). I didn't used flottation but only simple sieves (0,5 mm) and the volume was very small (1 litre). It was quite easy to do it. After sieving, samples were just put into a plastic bag for transport, not dried. Sorting was so done under humid conditions in the lab using fresh water to rinse them. Seeds and wood were finally conserved in fresh water.
I did'nt have special problems with salt crystals (there were some in the bags but not around the seeds or wood), but I think that's because I didn't dry the resulting flots (!).
I hope this can help you.
Good luck!!
Nuria Rovira
[log in to unmask]">Dear wise heads of the archaeobotany list,
How much of a bad idea would flotation be using salt water (e.g. Mediterranean)?I have found a US paper:-
Lange, Frederick W., and Frederick M. Carty. �Salt Water Application of the Flotation Technique.� Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 2, no. 1/2, 1975, pp. 119�123. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/529622.
but seem to remember that the likely salt crystal formation and expansion during drying would be an issue for fragmentation� - I certainly struggle id'ing cell structure in wood when deposits have built up?
- would it be enough to wash the resulting�flots?
what problems/successes have others had?,
Any advice would be welcome.
YoursDanielle
Danielle de Carle
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