Raman microscopy in archaeological science

Improvements in the instrumentation for dispersive and interferometric Fourier transform (FT) Raman microscopy have overcome many of the earlier limitations of these techniques, thus opening the way for their widespread and routine utilisation in archacometry laboratories. The use of Raman spectroscopy for identifying and studying archaeological materials has flourished in recent years, but the resulting articles have seldom been published in the archaeology literature, thus limiting their impact on the field. Therefore, this article covers concisely the theory and instrumentation of Raman microscopy and then comprehensively reviews the many applications of this technique in archaeometric research. The significant advances made in archaeological science through the use of Raman microscopy are highlighted, but many areas requiring further research, such as the generation of more extensive and reliable spectral libraries and the surmounting of obstacles in the analysis of certain classes of historical materials, are also revealed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.