Introduction – New Methods and Technologies of Natural Sciences for Archaeological Investigations in Nasca and Palpa, Peru

Applications of natural sciences in archaeology have actually a long tradition. In particular the chemical composition of metal artefacts was sporadically used for more than two hundred years, mainly for the purpose of material classification. One of the earliest examples is the quantitative analysis of Roman coins in 1799 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth in Berlin, a chemist who is better known as the discoverer of the element uranium. Based on the material composition of dominant remains, the Danish archaeologist Christian Jü rgensen Thomsen formally introduced in the 1820s the three-age system of prehistoric archaeology into three consecutive time periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.