Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017)
Date of Award
5-2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
BS
Department
Chemistry
Faculty Mentor
Alexandra Stenson
Abstract
This work describes the processes behind creating a method for extracting organic material from southeastern North American Indian pottery sherds, specifically those compounds used to identify remnants of yaupon tea known as Black Drink (caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline). The process for creating a Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) method to resolve the peaks of these compounds is also included, as well as several obstacles that arose during the experimental process. The overall goal of this experiment was to determine whether the sherds collected were involved in the brewing or storage of the beverage, Black Drink, and if additives were included in the brew to produce symptoms such as vomiting. Direct Analysis Real Time Mass Spectrometry (DART-MS) is also examined for its possible advantageous speed in screening sherds for the key compounds of interest. Some preliminary data are included, from a shard analysis that produced the proper mass peaks during DART-MS but resulted in a false positive once the LC/MS data were collected.
Recommended Citation
Garan Music, Shey, "Determining Contents of Native American Clay Vessels with Mass Spectrometry" (2013). Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017). 2.
https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/honors_theses-boundprint/2