Recent presentations and published papers on the use of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analyses for the discovery and field mapping if sites through the analyses of soils and plant materials have shown the validity of systematic pXRF field surveys in association with the geological components of context of detailed Combined Survey Format (CSF) of prehistoric, Historic era and Recent cultural sites. The early work of Arrhenius, et al. and the casual observations of numerous archaeological investigators over time and world-wide that soils and plants that have a high Phosphorous and metal values, in many cases, indicate the presence of human or animal remains, notably from forgotten cemetaries or conflict sites.

This concept of testing soils and plants for elemental indicators of mineral deposits has been in wide and successful use since the 1940's. The work of Colin Dunn et al. has shown that the initial low-tech field technologies of field "wet" colorimetric to determine, first, ore minerals and later the "pathfinder" elements in plant and soils worked!

What remained for use by archaeologists was the realization that the illustration of Clarke (1969) would be the key to using soil nd plant analyses to find evidence od human and animal activity from the Phosphorous signature left behind. Allthat would be necessary was a low-cost and reliable method that could detect P and other metals.

This path of discovery will be described.

• EGU: European Geosciences Union -
• GAC: Geological Association of Canada -
• SEG: Society of Exploration Geophysicists -
• SSSA: Soil Science Society of America -