CMRAE's mission is to advance our understanding of prehistoric and non-industrial culture through analysis of the structure and properties of materials associated with human activity. Plant and animal food remains, human skeletal material, as well as metal, ceramic, stone, bone, and fiber artifacts are the objects of study, along with the environments within which these materials were produced and used. Drawing upon the latest analytical techniques in biological, chemical, geological, physical, and materials science, the aim is to enrich our knowledge of past and present-day non-industrial societies by making the natural and engineering sciences part of our investigative tool kit.
The central premise underlying the CMRAE mission is that the scientific study of the materials associated with human activity will lead to a better understanding of the physical, social, cultural, and ideological world in which we function. By means of this understanding we may not only more fully reconstruct the role of materials in shaping the archaeological past but may also come to recognize how the evolving use of material has affected our culture in the present.
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