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Native American quillwork collections remain little studied due to the limited availability of quillwork material for sampling. In this paper we explore the use of non-invasive Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) and Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) to characterise metallic residues in a set of modern porcupine quills prepared with a range of metallic mordants. PIXE analysis was used to determine the concentrations of various mordants present, while RBS analysis allowed additional information on the depth-profiling of the mordants at the surface of the quills to be obtained.
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Troalen et al. (2016) studied this question.
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