Traces of the Past: Unraveling the Secrets of Archaeology Through Chemistry

The reach of analytical chemistry is amazing even to chemists! Joseph Lambert, a Professor of analytical chemistry at Northwestern University describes in this fascinating book how chemistry is used to study stone, glass, pottery, organic materials, metals, and human remains. This book has been listed on the Resource Shelf for about a year, under the Forensic Chemistry category, and was reviewed by Mary Virginia Orna in the Journal, so I need not say much more here, except that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. There probably isn't enough chemical detail in it for it to be used as a chemical text, but it could certainly inspire a young person considering what he or she might want to do with a degree in chemistry.