Rhy McMillan

Vancouver Island University | VIU · Department of Earth Science

The Color Alteration Index (CAI) of conodont specimens is commonly used for identifying the maximum temperature to which units of sedimentary rock, particularly carbonates, have been heated. Observable color variations in these fossils are thought to be a result of the thermally-induced structural evolution of organic carbonaceous matter (CM). Such...

The chemical compositions of toolstones composed of clastic and chemical sedimentary rock are often not distinct among procurement locations. However, sedimentary toolstone sources may show variations in the structural characteristics of the included carbonaceous material (CM) related to differences in their postdepositional histories, providing a...

Archaeologists' access to analytical infrastructure has grown exponentially over the last two decades. This is especially the case for benchtop X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and portable XRF (pXRF) instruments, which are now practically commonplace in archaeological laboratories and provide users with a non-destructive and rapid means to analyze the ele...

Although conservation practices facilitate the preservation of museum collections, procedures used to stabilize ancient materials can alter their chemical and isotopic compositions, impacting the viability of such specimens for life history investigations. In this study, we applied two common consolidants – polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) and acrylic resi...

A biface workspace dating to ca. cal a.d. 100–400 was identified during recent excavation at the Sts’ailes-Coast Salish village of YāçkEtEl, on the Harrison River on the Northwest Coast of North America. Based on a range of analyses, we suggest that a specialist crafted large bifaces produced as prestigious objects for exchange within a ceremonial...

Cremation was the main funerary practice in Belgium during the Late Bronze Age (LBA), the Early Iron Age (EIA), and the Roman period. As a result, burnt human bones are commonly found in Belgian archaeological contexts. The high temperatures reached during burning (up to 1000°C) lead to significant structural, chemical, and isotopic changes to the...

Studies of funerary practices provide information about many aspects of death in past societies. However, only limited archaeological evidence documents the circumstances under which cremations occurred and the person(s) who were performing the funerary rituals. Lying at the border between Atlantic and Continental cultural traditions, the Scheldt a...

This study's aim was to compare biochar and steam activated biochar functionalized with iron for removal of selenium as selenate from solutions also containing nitrate and sulfate. The Fe-biochar composites were made impregnating iron (ferric nitrate) onto regular biochar (RB) and steam activated biochar (SAB), forming the Fe-biochar composites FeR...

Studies of funerary practices provide information about many aspects of death in past societies. However, only limited archaeological evidence documents the circumstances under which cremations occurred and the person(s) who were performing the funerary rituals. Lying at the border between Atlantic and Continental cultural traditions, the Scheldt a...

Hawaiian volcanoes belong to two geographically and geochemically distinct trends, the Loa and Kea trends. The cause of this dichotomy is still strongly debated. One of the prevailing hypotheses is that the two trends originate in the deep mantle where the Hawaiian mantle plume straddles two geophysically and geochemically distinct domains at the c...

The conodont Color Alteration Index (CAI) has been widely used to determine the maximum temperature in carbonate rocks, despite recognition that conodont colour can be affected by other factors, such as diagenesis. Measurements of trace element characteristics in conodonts of varying CAI (1.5-6.0) from the Canadian Cordillera show that those specim...

Obsidian, or volcanic glass, is frequently found in archaeological sites in western North America. Researchers often investigate ancient Indigenous landscape use by comparing the trace element concentrations of archaeological obsidian objects to natural sources. However, the trace element compositions of obsidian sources are not necessarily unique,...

Detailed written records only exist for a very small amount of human history. Researchers must therefore combine Indigenous traditional knowledge with scientific evidence, often collected with geochemical and spectroscopic techniques, to investigate ancient human biology, behaviour, and culture. However, acquiring meaningful scientific information...

Andymcdonaldite is a new ferric-iron-tellurate mineral that occurs within Au-, Te-, and Bi-rich jasperoid at the Wildcat prospect in the Detroit district, Juab County, Utah. The mineral has a yellow-brown to brownish-black color and occurs as extremely cryptocrystalline (11-25 nm) material in thin films and breccia matrix fillings, and is associate...

Indigenous oral history and archaeological evidence both support extensive long-distance trade and exchange networks in ancient North America. However, many Indigenous communities oppose the excavation, decontextualization, and analysis of their belongings (artifacts) and ancestral remains for documenting such activities for Rights and Title applic...

Archaeology and geology inherently intersect when attempting to determine the geographic origin of lithic materials manufactured into artifacts by ancient people. Obsidian, or volcanic glass, is frequently found in archaeological sites, and researchers commonly use the trace element characteristics of obsidian artifacts to identify their source. Ho...

The scientific analysis of material from Indigenous contexts raises key questions about researcher objectivity. Indigenous scholarship of their material heritage often invokes elements such as sentient landscapes and the intervention of spirit-beings in geological and human history. Some critical theorists propose that objectivity in any form is a...

IMA No. 2018-141 Andymcdonaldite Fe2TeO6 Wildcat prospect, NW portion of the Detroit District, Juab Co., Utah, USA Mati Raudsepp*, Mark F. Coolbaugh, John K. McCormack, Edith Czech and Rhy McMillan *E-mail: mraudsepp@eoas.ubc.ca Known synthetic analogue Tetragonal: P42/mnm a = 4.6222(9), c = 9.077(3) Å 4.538(12), 4.119(35), 3.268(100), 2.6...

Over 10 years ago, under the University of British Columbia’s mandate to transform science education by integrating more student-centered and active learning practices, a graduate course in evidence-based pedagogy was created. This course, entitled “EOSC516: Teaching and Learning in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences”, has trained over 100 gradu...

Over 10 years ago, under the University of British Columbia’s mandate to transform science education by integrating more student-centred and active learning practices, a graduate course in evidence-based pedagogy was created. This course, entitled “EOSC516: Teaching and Learning in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences”, has trained over 100 gradua...

Trace element characteristics of obsidian artifacts are often used to identify their geologic origin, informing archaeologists on past human use of the landscape. Establishing accurate artifact-source relationships is paramount for demonstrating past territorial occupation by First Nations (e.g., Rights and Title), which has legal and socio-cultura...

Cation replacement in the bioapatite crystal lattice occurs in- and ex-vivo, recording both life and death histories. Early diagenetic degradation of organic material causes the instability of bioapatite post-mortem, which results in elemental and isotopic exchange between a bone and its surrounding environment. Such processes overprint in-vivo che...

Prehistoric bones and teeth are extremely valuable resources for both life history (in-vivo) and diagenetic (ex-vivo) information. Taphonomy is the study of the ex-vivo processes and resulting alteration a biological organism undergoes from the time of its death until its discovery. Depositional and post-depositional taphonomic processes cause the...

At many prehistoric sites, erosional processes rework and mix materials of different ages into the same sedimentary facies, producing time-averaged deposits. Archaeologists and palaeontologists must, therefore, consider and correct for this reworking when using natural stratigraphy to situate artifacts and remains in time. At Scladina Cave, a Neand...

This poster proposes a new, non-destructive method for artifact raw material analysis, Raman Spectroscopy.

New developments for the study of cremated bone in archaeological contexts.

Acquiring accurate and precise dates for archaeological materials and features is fundamental for investigating human history on the Northwest Coast (NWC) of British Columbia, Canada. Remarkably few radiocarbon dates for intertidal features exist in the literature, and they are only associated with features that yield objects which can be directly...

Fish traps are a ubiquitous fishing feature on the Northwest Coast, with thousands of features recorded at hundreds of sites. This fishing technology represents a use and modification of intertidal and riverine environments at an industrial scale, yet protocol and management practices ensured that fish populations flourished. As in other areas of t...

Fishing structures are an old and ubiquitous technology on the Northwest Coast (NWC), dating from at least the Middle Holocene, 5488-5741 cal BP to the Late Holocene, including modern times (McMillan, et al. 2017; Moss 2011:35, 126; 2013:327; Smith 2011:19). From Southeast Alaska to Oregon there are at least 1227 registered fish trap sites that inc...

Presentation at the UBC Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences’ Research Carnival at the Departmental Colloquium.