Tibbits plans international granite research; national presentation
CHADRON – This spring, Chadron State College Associate Professor Dr. Tawny Tibbits will travel to Belize to conduct research on granite using a portable Xray fluorescence (pXRF) unit. Several weeks later, she and her colleagues who recently co-authored an academic journal article, will present their research at a national conference.
In December 2022, Tibbits co-published a paper titled “Using X-ray Fluorescence to examine ancient Maya granite ground stone in Belize” in the journal GeoArchaeology with Dr. Meghan Peuramaki-Brown, Dr. Marieka Brouwer Burg, Dr. Matthew Tibbits, and Dr. Eleanor Harrison-Buck.
In early March, Tibbits will conduct additional research with granite that's been recovered by members of the Belize River East Archaeology Project group.
“They are finishing up a winter field season there now with students, so they'll have some new things to analyze when I get there,” Tibbits said.
She estimates she can analyze up to 50 artifacts in a day with the pXRF that she and Professor Dr. Mike Leite wrote a grant to purchase for CSC.
Following the additional research, Tibbits and her colleagues will present their findings at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Portland.
Tibbits was invited, with her fellow scientists, to submit a presentation for a special session about ground stone tools in Belize.
“Everybody who's doing work on ground stone or hard rocks in Belize is going to be in the session. We're really excited about it because there are a lot of cool things going on,” said Tibbits, who has presented at the conference before.
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