PTT Grants

The 1992 Amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act, Title IV (16 U.S.C. 470x-Section 405) provide that, “The Secretary, in consultation with the Board, shall provide preservation technology and training grants to eligible applicants with a demonstrated institutional capability and commitment to the purposes of the Center, in order to ensure an effective and efficient system of research, information distribution and skills training in all the related historic preservation fields.”

This report details the Preservation Technology and Training Grants program activities between Oct. 1 and March 16. Highlights of the 2007 PTT Grants program activities include the following:

• In all, 44 complete applications for funding were received, requesting approximately $1.9 million.
• The proposals underwent a three-tier review. First, NCPTT staff reviewed proposals to ensure completeness and relevancy. Second, proposals were assigned to a mini-panel of experts to evaluate and rank similar proposals. Third, high-ranking proposals in each of the research priorities and in the other technologies category were selected for national panel review.
• NCPTT held a national panel review by conference call on March 14. The PTT board representative for the panel review was Jim Garrison. NCPTT staff overseeing the review included Mary Striegel, Andy Ferrell, David Morgan and Kirk Cordell.
• NCPTT plans to award seven grants, totaling $250,000 in funding.
• The awards represented a funding rate of approximately 15.91 percent of the completed proposals submitted. This indicated a one-in-six chance of receiving funding in the 2007 grants cycle.

Proposals Recommended for Funding

School of Engineering, University of Vermont, $49,900.00
Heritage Preservation Engineering: Curriculum Development
The School of Engineering at the University of Vermont is in the process of adopting heritage preservation engineering as an area of focus. This will make it one of the first engineering programs in the U.S. focused on quantitative techniques and methodologies applied to the engineering evaluation and remediation of heritage structures. In order to develop curricular materials that adequately reflect the current state of the art, the university proposes to convene a colloquium of noted heritage preservation engineers and design professionals for that purpose. The colloquium will result in the creation of new curricula along with publication of the colloquium proceedings.

New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission, $49,200
Adapting Post-Disaster Data for Local Government Use
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans benefited from a wide range of volunteer, university, state, federal and other efforts. In the areas of architecture and preservation, many of these efforts were recorded in electronic format and done specifically to support the HDLC, whose staff was cut to minimal levels. How does an agency adapt this wealth of data to meet local needs? This project will use real world data to establish standards for future disaster-related preservation work.

Princeton University, $48,900
Diagnosing and Controlling Hygric Swelling of Stone
Many sedimentary stones (including Portland brownstone, which is widely used in historic buildings on the east coast of the US) contain stones that swell when wet, leading to stress and cracking. Princeton proposes to develop methods for quantifying the stress, identify the flaws that trigger cracking, and optimize treatments to prevent the damage. They would also develop experimental methods for quantifying the rate and magnitude of swelling, which are essential for diagnosing the risk to a building, and evaluating the effectiveness of treatment.

University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, $50,000.00
Microbial Detoxification of Mercury Contaminated Museum Collections: Effect of Material Composition on Mercury Removal
NAGPRA has generated increased interest in the mitigation of metal toxicity associated with metal-treated museum collections, which pose health risks to museum personnel and tribal members. The research proposed here represents a novel, microbiologically-based mercury mitigation method for the remediation of contaminated cultural collections. Naturally-occurring mercury-volatilizing bacteria will be used to reduce the mercury concentrations associated with treated materials. The bacterial conversion of mercury into a gaseous form that can be properly disposed of reduces the material-associated mercury concentration. During bacterial treatment, microbiological and analytical chemistry methods will be used to monitor the environmental parameters needed to optimize mercury removal.

Cornerstones Community Partnerships, $13,700
An Emergency Flood Mitigation Manual for Earthen Architecture
Cornerstones Community Partnerships, the Santa Fe nonprofit organization internationally known for its community-based adobe preservation model, has identified the need for an emergency flood mitigation manual. This manual would serve as a guide for emergency preparedness teams, homeowners, and contractors in the stabilization and recovery of storm-damaged earthen architecture in the western U.S. and border region. NCPTT funding would support the preparation, publication, and public dissemination of the latest flood-mitigation techniques that Cornerstones has developed in response to the summer’s disastrous flooding in southern New Mexico. The proposed publication would be the first of its kind to focus on disaster conditions affecting earthen architecture.

City of Aspen, Colorado, $23,100
Conservation of Wooden Artifacts in Cemeteries
This project would produce a report, primarily in non-technical language, that summarizes information on wood deterioration, conservation and preservation options that will allow cemetery stewards to extend the life of fragile wooden artifacts. The project would also identify research priorities for long-term conservation of these artifacts. More durable artifacts in the cemetery landscapes, such as stone markers and metal grave enclosures, have readily available documents on conservation methodologies. There is no single resource available that explains conservation issues for wooden artifacts in cemeteries. This project is intended to fill that void.

Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, $14,800
Aerial Thermal Survey of New Philadelphia, Ill. Town Site
New Philadelphia, nationally significant as the first town planned and legally founded by a free African American in the United States, grew as a multi-racial community from 1836 through the 1880s. A surveyor’s plat and town plan filed in 1836 set out a grid of blocks, lots, alleys and streets. Geophysical and archeological investigations to date have located limited extents of the town’s remains now buried beneath agricultural fields and prairie. This project will conduct low-altitude aerial surveys using thermal imaging to determine whether the actual spatial extent of the town’s lots and streets can be detected through such technologies.

Recommended: $249,600         

Proposals Recommended for Funding Pending Additional Grant Money (by rank)

Mississippi State University, $46,100
Establishing an Elemental Baseline for Sourcing Shell and Shell-Tempered Artifacts in the Eastern Woodlands of North America using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS)
A non-destructive method of sourcing shell artifacts and shell-tempered pottery using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has recently been developed (Peacock et al., under review). To make the method widely applicable, background chemical data on shells from different watersheds are needed. LA-ICP-MS analysis of shell samples from sites across eastern North America is proposed in order to create a database for researchers interested in conducting non-destructive sourcing studies of shell and shell-tempered artifacts, especially sensitive artifacts such as museum specimens and burial accompaniments for which destructive analyses are undesirable.

University of Arizona, $50,000
Evaluation of Conservation and Preservation Practices in a Southwest Pottery Collection
A variety of materials and methods have been used to preserve ceramic vessels. Many have proven successful, while others are damaging. Monitoring and evaluation of past treatments is a documented research priority in the conservation field. The Arizona State Museum (ASM) proposes to examine, record and analyze the performance of past treatments on the museum’s collection. Previous grant funds enabled conditions assessment of 20,000 southwest vessels and a modern storage facility. NCPTT funds will be used to monitor and evaluate previous preservation treatments. This research would enable researchers to identify patterns in archeological methods, museum management and conservation.

University of Cincinnati, University of Vermont, $50,000
Direct Prediction of Archeological Phenomena by Satellite Remote Sensing
Our previous NCPTT-funded study showed that a direct predictive model (DPM) based on the remotely-sensed spectral signatures of five types of archeological phenomena, extracted from an IKONOS satellite image, accurately forecast their presence or absence in unsurveyed terrain. However, to resolve the false-positive problem, which occurs when a DPM over-predicts the presence of archeological phenomena, researchers propose to vary pixel resolution in a GIS buffering analysis and to derive highly contrastive spectral signatures using a “snow-on” IKONOS image. Residual false-positive pixels then will be field-checked to determine whether their prevalence is attributable to environmental mimicry of archeological phenomena. Researchers would also ground-truth the predictions of a revised DPM in Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park to assess the effects of differing land-management policies on spectral-signature derivation at the regional level.

Additional: $146,100     

Grand Total: $395,700     

Recent Grant Products

Updated final report received from the University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum. Cross, Peggi. Removal of Arsenic and Mercury Contamination in Museums using a Natural Environmentally Benign Chemical, PTT Grant No. MT-2210-05-NC-06, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Natchitoches, LA, 32 pp. Traditional cleaning treatments like arsenic and mercury salts present issues of toxicity for museum artifacts and their handlers. In addition, the cultural beliefs of some Native Americans limit the use of these techniques as some objects are considered spiritual beings. This grant tested and affirmed the efficacy of α-lipoic acid, a natural healing and detoxification agent, to be the most appropriate cleaning agent for removing high concentrations of arsenic and mercury from non-sulfur bearing artifacts such as paper and cotton. The solutions could also effectively remove arsenic from feathers and wool but were ineffective in removing mercury from the sulfur-bearing materials.

Final Report received from the Marine Sciences Research Center, Stony Brook University. Flood, Roger; The Use of Multibeam Swath Bathymetry for the Identification and Assessment of Underwater Archaeological Sites, PTT Grant No. MT-2210-03-NC-08, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Natchitoches, LA, 2007, 36 pp. This project summarizes the researchers’ experience in collecting and interpreting multibeam data for archeological purposes. The Hudson River project was used as a case study, but the project is relevant to archeological research globally.

NCPTT received copies of the paper, Chandra L. Reedy, “Review of Digital Image Analysis of Petrographic Thin Sections in Conservation Research,” JAIC 45 (2006): 127-146. This research was originally funded with a 2002 PTT Grant. Thin-section petrography is an inexpensive, yet extremely useful, technique available to conservation laboratories. This project produced a book that provides the first comprehensive resource for such users. The first chapter provides an overview of the technique and its context, and outlines problems and goals unique to cultural materials. The next eight chapters contain case studies of art, architecture and archaeological objects, accompanied by atlases, for specific classes of materials including stone, ceramics, cementitious materials, and others. Atlases help readers in their own identifications; case studies illustrate both uses and limitations of the technique. The final chapter focuses on image analysis and statistical methods for petrographic thin sections

MT-2210-05-NC-12 (Alan Sullivan, U. Cincinnati, "Testing...Spectral Signals of Archaeological Phenomena") completed project, submitted all deliverables (October 2006), and received final payment (March 2007). Summary: Alan Sullivan (U. Cincinnati) designed a predictive satellite model for locating small-scale and low-obtrusive archaeological phenomena using as a case study the Upper Basin or northern Arizona. His study predicted the presence and absence of five types of archaeological sites at high rates: 100 percent and 99.4 percent, respectively. The drawback is that the pixel resolution—1 m—is so high that it over-predicts sites. In other words, the resolution is so high that it identifies many possible images as sites, which makes it highly successful but entails the downside of also incorrectly identifying many natural phenomena as sites.

Final report from the Department of Architectural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University. Boothby, Tom et al; Manual for the Assessment of Load-Bearing Unreinforced Masonry Structures, PTT Grant No. Grant MT-2210-04-NC-05; National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Natchitoches, LA, 2007, 100 pp. The research has culminated in the development of a manual for the assessment of load-bearing masonry structures. This manual describes the application of linear and non-linear methods to the structural assessment of two-dimensional arch structures and three-dimensional vault structures. For the arch structures, the manual gives detailed guidance on the use of lower and upper bound plasticity methods and on the application of frame analysis computer programs to the assessment of arches. The manual gives guidance for the application of frame analysis programs to linear and non-linear assessment of masonry arches. Detailed instructions are also given for the development of solid models, meshing, entering material properties, boundary conditions, and loads for models of complex three-dimensional structures, such as domes and vaults. Three examples are presented and described in detail.