Home›Open Questions›When Did Archaeochemistry Become a Field of Its Own, Rather Than Chemistry Applied Occasionally to Archaeology, and Who First Named It So?Open QuestionsWhen Did Archaeochemistry Become a Field of Its Own, Rather Than Chemistry Applied Occasionally to Archaeology, and Who First Named It So?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextDivinity Atlas. "When Did Archaeochemistry Become a Field of Its Own, Rather Than Chemistry Applied Occasionally to Archaeology, and Who First Named It So?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/when-did-archaeochemistry-become-a-field-of-its-own-rather-than-chemistry-applied-occasionally-to-archaeology-and-who-first-named-it-so.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextDivinity Atlas. (n.d.). When Did Archaeochemistry Become a Field of Its Own, Rather Than Chemistry Applied Occasionally to Archaeology, and Who First Named It So?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/when-did-archaeochemistry-become-a-field-of-its-own-rather-than-chemistry-applied-occasionally-to-archaeology-and-who-first-named-it-soCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{divinityatlas-when-did-archaeochemistry-become-a-field, author = {Divinity Atlas}, title = {When Did Archaeochemistry Become a Field of Its Own, Rather Than Chemistry Applied Occasionally to Archaeology, and Who First Named It So?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/when-did-archaeochemistry-become-a-field-of-its-own-rather-than-chemistry-applied-occasionally-to-archaeology-and-who-first-named-it-so}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)Open QuestionChemical analysis of archaeological material goes back to the French chemist Marcelin Berthelot's survey of about 150 Egyptian and Near Eastern artifacts in the late nineteenth century, and continued through Earle Caley's American work from the late 1930s onward, but nobody appears to have fixed a single moment when the practice became a named field rather than a recurring collaboration between two older disciplines. Caley's own retrospective papers describe a history rather than announce a founding.What would resolve this A dedicated historiographic study of archaeological chemistry's own institutional history, comparable to the histories that exist for archaeometry (dated to the 1958 founding of the Oxford Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art) or radiocarbon dating (dated to Willard Libby's 1949 paper). No such study of archaeochemistry specifically has been identified; one would need to trace when practitioners first identified as archaeochemists rather than as chemists who occasionally worked on archaeological material.OpenHistory of chemistry and history of archaeology, tracing when chemical analysis of archaeological material stopped being an occasional collaboration and became a named, self-identified subfield.Earle R. Caley, The Early History of Chemistry in the Service of Archaeology (Caley, Journal of Chemical Education, 1967)Cross-Tradition ConnectionsDiscipline NeededHistory of Chemistry, Scholarly Disciplines Well-attested Source The Early History of Chemistry in the Service of Archaeology (Caley, Journal of Chemical Education, 1967)Earle R. Caleytier 2Question OnArchaeochemistry, Scholarly Disciplines Well-attested Source The Early History of Chemistry in the Service of Archaeology (Caley, Journal of Chemical Education, 1967)Earle R. Caleytier 2SourcesThe Early History of Chemistry in the Service of Archaeology (Caley, Journal of Chemical Education, 1967)tier 2Earle R. Caley, American Chemical Society, Journal of Chemical Education, 1967View the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year