T Birch
Biographic Data
| ID | 20114 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T Birch |
| GIVEN NAMES | T |
| FAMILY NAME | Birch |
| SIGNATURE | BIRCH T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aarhus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4568-9767 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1936 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Chemical Data in Archaeometallurgy of Iron
Archaeometallurgists interested in iron do not currently have access to extensive chemical reference data repositories. Yet chemical data is of crucial importance both for reconstructing ancient technical systems and socio-economic structures, by determining the operating conditions and the exchange networks. We are seeking to meet this need with the CHIPS database, developed on PostgreSQL. The goal is to provide the scientific community with glo…
Author response of: The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron. Round#2
A recommendation of: Alexandre Disser, Sylvain Bauvais, Thomas Huet, Laurent Costa, Marco Leoni, Thomas Birch, Philippe Dillmann The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20459792
The Damhus Hoard: New Insights Into Some of the Earliest Viking Silver Coinage
In 2018, a hoard totalling 266 silver Viking Age coins was discovered near Damhus, south of Ribe (Denmark). The coins belong to the early ninth‐century ‘KG 4’ series, with the vast majority, 262 coins, identified as having Face/Forward Looking Deer on the obverse/reverse. They are among the earliest type of a reformed coinage from Scandinavia's first town, Ribe (Denmark)—some of the first Viking silver pennies. Chemical and lead isotopic analyses…
Local or interregional exchange systems? A study of Estonian iron provenancing
The aim of this study is to address questions about the differences in chemical composition of iron smelting slag finds in Estonia. The chemical analyses of smelting slag will allow to establish a production regions reference dataset for further research. Currency blooms have been also included, of which some have been dated to the Estonian Viking Age (800–1050 AD) and the Late Iron Age (1050–1227 AD). The blooms are examined about their relation…
Author response of: The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron. Round#1
A recommendation of: Alexandre Disser, Sylvain Bauvais, Thomas Huet, Laurent Costa, Marco Leoni, Thomas Birch, Philippe Dillmann The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20459792
The earliest evidence of blue pigment use in Europe
Blue pigments are absent in Palaeolithic art. This has been ascribed to a lack of naturally occurring blue pigments or low visual salience of these hues. Using a suite of archaeometric approaches, the authors identify traces of azurite on a concave stone artefact from the Final Palaeolithic site of Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany. This represents the earliest use of blue pigment in Europe. The scarcity of blue in Palaeolithic art, along with later p…
A Collaborative Approach to the Analysis of Northwest Coast Treasures from the Ehlers Collection in Denmark
The paper examines three late nineteenth-early twentieth century Pacific Northwest coast objects-a Nuu-chah-nulth kuxmin (bird rattle), a Haida sGaaga (medicine man) figure, and a Kwakwaka'wakw or Wuikinuxv wooden model of a totem pole-from the collections of the Ehlers museum in Haderslev, Denmark. Drawing on multiple sources and epistemologies and structuring the study as a weaving of different narratives and perspectives, we investigate the id…
On diverse arts: Crucible metallurgy and the polymetallic cycle at Scandinavia's earliest Viking town, Ribe (8th-9th c. CE), Denmark
This study presents results from the analytical investigation of the polymetallic, non-ferrous metallurgical cycle at early Viking Age Ribe, Denmark, in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. We combine extensive surface analyses of crucibles and moulds (handheld XRF) with targeted micro-destructive examination (micro XRF, electron microprobe spectroscopy-EPMA) of crucibles, moulds, ingots, blanks, and finished objects from the different stages of the sec…
Thomas Birch to Andrew Millar (24 August 1749)
"83 Thomas Birch to Andrew Millar (24 August 1749)" published on by null.
Rome'S Rise to Power. Geochemical Analysis of Silver Coinage from the Western Mediterranean (Fourth to Second Centuries BCE)
We present the results of geochemical analysis of silver coinage issued by Rome and dated between the fourth and second century BCE, which are complemented by data of coinage issued by Carthage, the Brettii, and the Greek colony of Emporion. Each of these minting authorities represents one of the major parties involved in the struggle for hegemony in the fourth to second centuries BCE Western Mediterranean region. This study retraces how the meta…
Copper-based metalwork in Roman to early Islamic Jerash (Jordan): Insights into production and recycling through alloy compositions and lead isotopes
Metallographic, chemical and lead isotopic analyses of copper-based artefacts recovered from the Northwest Quarter in Jerash (ancient Gerasa) in Jordan provide new information on the civic life and material culture from a key urban site in the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces. The samples span the city’s occupation from its flourishing under Roman rule into the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. We examined 49 copper-based artefacts using refle…
A miner's perspective on Pb isotope provenances in the Western and Central Mediterranean
The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to match them to published data about mining districts, a difficult task given our incomplete knowledge of these. While literary sources are useful to identify possible provenances, they potentially bias interpretations proper because of a variety of limitations of their time. Archeological evidence in the form of minin…
Retracing Magna Graecia's silver: Coupling lead isotopes with a multi‐standard trace element procedure
This study presents the results of compositional and lead isotopic analysis of coinage issued by the Greek colonies of Syracuse, Metapontum, Taras and Thurium in the fifth to third centuries bce . The data suggest that each colony in Magna Graecia, regardless of its motherland roots and despite ongoing conflicts between the cities, had access to the same silver, and that this supply was stable overall throughout their period of minting and issuin…
Multi-classifier majority voting analyses in provenance studies on iron artefacts
The main objective of this paper is to propose an approach for identification of provenance of archaeological iron artefacts making use of major oxides and trace elements. For this purpose, seven classifiers were built on the basis of the following techniques: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forests (RF), Naïve Bayes (NB), K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Recursive Partitioning and Regression Trees (RPART) and …
From nummi minimi to fulūs-small change and wider issues: Characterising coinage from Gerasa/Jerash (Late Roman to Umayyad periods)
New compositional and metallographic data are presented for the fourth to eighth century CE copper coins from the Northwest Quarter of Gerasa/Jerash, Jordan. The majority of the coins are small copper and copper alloy nummi minimi from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. Also represented are pre-reform and post-reform fulūs minted under the Umayyad dynasty. Seventy-one coins (55 Roman, 4 Byzantine, 3 pre-reform and 9 post-reform) were character…
Shape as a measure of weapon standardisation: From metric to geometric morphometric analysis of the Iron Age ‘Havor’ lance from Southern Scandinavia
Colonial iron in context: The Trianon slave shackle from Mauritius
Finding the invisible smelt: Using Experimental Archaeology to Critically Evaluate Fieldwork Methods Applied to Bloomery Iron Production Remains
Living on the edge: Making and moving iron from the ‘outside’ in Anglo-Saxon England
The production of iron in Anglo-Saxon England is little understood due to the lack of evidence. There are less than a dozen iron smelting sites known. This is a distinct contrast to the wealth of evidence of iron smelting during the Roman period. Should we believe that the Anglo-Saxon world was relying on recycled Roman iron? The absence of evidence should not be taken as the evidence of absence. Instead, we can look towards contemporary archaeol…
The Colony of the Dead (Poem)
a colonial jewel of the southern sea this playground all columns and quarried stone its fix seeped in veins of gold leaves a taste on the tongue and a nagging scratch
Archive Box - Series One: Matters in relation to Aborigines Act (1886)
24 May 1930 The Board for the Protection of the Aborigines reports that for the month ending April 1930 no additional expenditure was outlaid by the Board with the exception of the purchase of 100 yards of superior fencing wire. The ration inventory for the natives and half castes recognised within the relevant clauses of the Act (1886) did not exceed previously stated amounts allocated and attended to within that Act (1886)
Ownership matters: Forestland concentration in rural Alabama
The land tenure literature theorizes relationships between land tenure patterns and rural well‐being which have application in the analysis of contemporary trends in forestland ownership in the U.S. South. Of particular interest are impacts of landown‐ership concentration on the well‐being of rural areas. In this article, we review the literature on land concentration and well‐being; describe current forest ownership patterns in the state of Alab…
The Afforestation of Britain
A miner's perspective on Pb isotope provenances in the Western and Central Mediterranean
The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to match them to published data about mining districts, a difficult task given our incomplete knowledge of these. While literary sources are useful to identify possible provenances, they potentially bias interpretations proper because of a variety of limitations of their time. Archeological evidence in the form of minin…
Retracing Magna Graecia's silver: Coupling lead isotopes with a multi‐standard trace element procedure
This study presents the results of compositional and lead isotopic analysis of coinage issued by the Greek colonies of Syracuse, Metapontum, Taras and Thurium in the fifth to third centuries bce . The data suggest that each colony in Magna Graecia, regardless of its motherland roots and despite ongoing conflicts between the cities, had access to the same silver, and that this supply was stable overall throughout their period of minting and issuin…
Finding the invisible smelt: Using Experimental Archaeology to Critically Evaluate Fieldwork Methods Applied to Bloomery Iron Production Remains
On diverse arts: Crucible metallurgy and the polymetallic cycle at Scandinavia's earliest Viking town, Ribe (8th-9th c. CE), Denmark
This study presents results from the analytical investigation of the polymetallic, non-ferrous metallurgical cycle at early Viking Age Ribe, Denmark, in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. We combine extensive surface analyses of crucibles and moulds (handheld XRF) with targeted micro-destructive examination (micro XRF, electron microprobe spectroscopy-EPMA) of crucibles, moulds, ingots, blanks, and finished objects from the different stages of the sec…
Shape as a measure of weapon standardisation: From metric to geometric morphometric analysis of the Iron Age ‘Havor’ lance from Southern Scandinavia
Ownership matters: Forestland concentration in rural Alabama
The land tenure literature theorizes relationships between land tenure patterns and rural well‐being which have application in the analysis of contemporary trends in forestland ownership in the U.S. South. Of particular interest are impacts of landown‐ership concentration on the well‐being of rural areas. In this article, we review the literature on land concentration and well‐being; describe current forest ownership patterns in the state of Alab…
Copper-based metalwork in Roman to early Islamic Jerash (Jordan): Insights into production and recycling through alloy compositions and lead isotopes
Metallographic, chemical and lead isotopic analyses of copper-based artefacts recovered from the Northwest Quarter in Jerash (ancient Gerasa) in Jordan provide new information on the civic life and material culture from a key urban site in the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces. The samples span the city’s occupation from its flourishing under Roman rule into the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. We examined 49 copper-based artefacts using refle…
Multi-classifier majority voting analyses in provenance studies on iron artefacts
The main objective of this paper is to propose an approach for identification of provenance of archaeological iron artefacts making use of major oxides and trace elements. For this purpose, seven classifiers were built on the basis of the following techniques: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forests (RF), Naïve Bayes (NB), K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Recursive Partitioning and Regression Trees (RPART) and …
From nummi minimi to fulūs-small change and wider issues: Characterising coinage from Gerasa/Jerash (Late Roman to Umayyad periods)
New compositional and metallographic data are presented for the fourth to eighth century CE copper coins from the Northwest Quarter of Gerasa/Jerash, Jordan. The majority of the coins are small copper and copper alloy nummi minimi from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. Also represented are pre-reform and post-reform fulūs minted under the Umayyad dynasty. Seventy-one coins (55 Roman, 4 Byzantine, 3 pre-reform and 9 post-reform) were character…
Colonial iron in context: The Trianon slave shackle from Mauritius
The Afforestation of Britain
Ownership matters: Forestland concentration in rural Alabama
The land tenure literature theorizes relationships between land tenure patterns and rural well‐being which have application in the analysis of contemporary trends in forestland ownership in the U.S. South. Of particular interest are impacts of landown‐ership concentration on the well‐being of rural areas. In this article, we review the literature on land concentration and well‐being; describe current forest ownership patterns in the state of Alab…
The Colony of the Dead (Poem)
a colonial jewel of the southern sea this playground all columns and quarried stone its fix seeped in veins of gold leaves a taste on the tongue and a nagging scratch
Archive Box - Series One: Matters in relation to Aborigines Act (1886)
24 May 1930 The Board for the Protection of the Aborigines reports that for the month ending April 1930 no additional expenditure was outlaid by the Board with the exception of the purchase of 100 yards of superior fencing wire. The ration inventory for the natives and half castes recognised within the relevant clauses of the Act (1886) did not exceed previously stated amounts allocated and attended to within that Act (1886)
Living on the edge: Making and moving iron from the ‘outside’ in Anglo-Saxon England
The production of iron in Anglo-Saxon England is little understood due to the lack of evidence. There are less than a dozen iron smelting sites known. This is a distinct contrast to the wealth of evidence of iron smelting during the Roman period. Should we believe that the Anglo-Saxon world was relying on recycled Roman iron? The absence of evidence should not be taken as the evidence of absence. Instead, we can look towards contemporary archaeol…
Finding the invisible smelt: Using Experimental Archaeology to Critically Evaluate Fieldwork Methods Applied to Bloomery Iron Production Remains
Colonial iron in context: The Trianon slave shackle from Mauritius
Shape as a measure of weapon standardisation: From metric to geometric morphometric analysis of the Iron Age ‘Havor’ lance from Southern Scandinavia
Multi-classifier majority voting analyses in provenance studies on iron artefacts
The main objective of this paper is to propose an approach for identification of provenance of archaeological iron artefacts making use of major oxides and trace elements. For this purpose, seven classifiers were built on the basis of the following techniques: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forests (RF), Naïve Bayes (NB), K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Recursive Partitioning and Regression Trees (RPART) and …
From nummi minimi to fulūs-small change and wider issues: Characterising coinage from Gerasa/Jerash (Late Roman to Umayyad periods)
New compositional and metallographic data are presented for the fourth to eighth century CE copper coins from the Northwest Quarter of Gerasa/Jerash, Jordan. The majority of the coins are small copper and copper alloy nummi minimi from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. Also represented are pre-reform and post-reform fulūs minted under the Umayyad dynasty. Seventy-one coins (55 Roman, 4 Byzantine, 3 pre-reform and 9 post-reform) were character…
Thomas Birch to Andrew Millar (24 August 1749)
"83 Thomas Birch to Andrew Millar (24 August 1749)" published on by null.
Rome'S Rise to Power. Geochemical Analysis of Silver Coinage from the Western Mediterranean (Fourth to Second Centuries BCE)
We present the results of geochemical analysis of silver coinage issued by Rome and dated between the fourth and second century BCE, which are complemented by data of coinage issued by Carthage, the Brettii, and the Greek colony of Emporion. Each of these minting authorities represents one of the major parties involved in the struggle for hegemony in the fourth to second centuries BCE Western Mediterranean region. This study retraces how the meta…
Copper-based metalwork in Roman to early Islamic Jerash (Jordan): Insights into production and recycling through alloy compositions and lead isotopes
Metallographic, chemical and lead isotopic analyses of copper-based artefacts recovered from the Northwest Quarter in Jerash (ancient Gerasa) in Jordan provide new information on the civic life and material culture from a key urban site in the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces. The samples span the city’s occupation from its flourishing under Roman rule into the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. We examined 49 copper-based artefacts using refle…
A miner's perspective on Pb isotope provenances in the Western and Central Mediterranean
The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to match them to published data about mining districts, a difficult task given our incomplete knowledge of these. While literary sources are useful to identify possible provenances, they potentially bias interpretations proper because of a variety of limitations of their time. Archeological evidence in the form of minin…
Retracing Magna Graecia's silver: Coupling lead isotopes with a multi‐standard trace element procedure
This study presents the results of compositional and lead isotopic analysis of coinage issued by the Greek colonies of Syracuse, Metapontum, Taras and Thurium in the fifth to third centuries bce . The data suggest that each colony in Magna Graecia, regardless of its motherland roots and despite ongoing conflicts between the cities, had access to the same silver, and that this supply was stable overall throughout their period of minting and issuin…
On diverse arts: Crucible metallurgy and the polymetallic cycle at Scandinavia's earliest Viking town, Ribe (8th-9th c. CE), Denmark
This study presents results from the analytical investigation of the polymetallic, non-ferrous metallurgical cycle at early Viking Age Ribe, Denmark, in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. We combine extensive surface analyses of crucibles and moulds (handheld XRF) with targeted micro-destructive examination (micro XRF, electron microprobe spectroscopy-EPMA) of crucibles, moulds, ingots, blanks, and finished objects from the different stages of the sec…
A Collaborative Approach to the Analysis of Northwest Coast Treasures from the Ehlers Collection in Denmark
The paper examines three late nineteenth-early twentieth century Pacific Northwest coast objects-a Nuu-chah-nulth kuxmin (bird rattle), a Haida sGaaga (medicine man) figure, and a Kwakwaka'wakw or Wuikinuxv wooden model of a totem pole-from the collections of the Ehlers museum in Haderslev, Denmark. Drawing on multiple sources and epistemologies and structuring the study as a weaving of different narratives and perspectives, we investigate the id…
Author response of: The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron. Round#1
A recommendation of: Alexandre Disser, Sylvain Bauvais, Thomas Huet, Laurent Costa, Marco Leoni, Thomas Birch, Philippe Dillmann The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20459792
The earliest evidence of blue pigment use in Europe
Blue pigments are absent in Palaeolithic art. This has been ascribed to a lack of naturally occurring blue pigments or low visual salience of these hues. Using a suite of archaeometric approaches, the authors identify traces of azurite on a concave stone artefact from the Final Palaeolithic site of Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany. This represents the earliest use of blue pigment in Europe. The scarcity of blue in Palaeolithic art, along with later p…
The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Chemical Data in Archaeometallurgy of Iron
Archaeometallurgists interested in iron do not currently have access to extensive chemical reference data repositories. Yet chemical data is of crucial importance both for reconstructing ancient technical systems and socio-economic structures, by determining the operating conditions and the exchange networks. We are seeking to meet this need with the CHIPS database, developed on PostgreSQL. The goal is to provide the scientific community with glo…
Author response of: The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron. Round#2
A recommendation of: Alexandre Disser, Sylvain Bauvais, Thomas Huet, Laurent Costa, Marco Leoni, Thomas Birch, Philippe Dillmann The CHIPS Database: A Repository for Reference Data on Chemical Analysis in Archaeometallurgy of Iron https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20459792
The Damhus Hoard: New Insights Into Some of the Earliest Viking Silver Coinage
In 2018, a hoard totalling 266 silver Viking Age coins was discovered near Damhus, south of Ribe (Denmark). The coins belong to the early ninth‐century ‘KG 4’ series, with the vast majority, 262 coins, identified as having Face/Forward Looking Deer on the obverse/reverse. They are among the earliest type of a reformed coinage from Scandinavia's first town, Ribe (Denmark)—some of the first Viking silver pennies. Chemical and lead isotopic analyses…
Local or interregional exchange systems? A study of Estonian iron provenancing
The aim of this study is to address questions about the differences in chemical composition of iron smelting slag finds in Estonia. The chemical analyses of smelting slag will allow to establish a production regions reference dataset for further research. Currency blooms have been also included, of which some have been dated to the Estonian Viking Age (800–1050 AD) and the Late Iron Age (1050–1227 AD). The blooms are examined about their relation…
Archaeology (10 works) · Geography (10 works) · History (10 works) · Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis (8 works) · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts (8 works) · Ancient history (6 works) · Geology (6 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)