[AnthroGuy]

Hey all,

I'm studying plant remains and need a machine that would be capable of sorting small materials roughly between .5-3mm. I'm currently a research assistant working in the paleoethnobotany lab at UC Berkeley, but its obvious that archaeology is behind on their tech. We're sorting such materials as tiny shards of rock , bone, and ceramics out of the mixture by hand under a microscope. The material has already gone through a process of wet flotation and has been dried, but the valuable material is mixed together and with a more dirt clumps then desired material. The process must be dry, as the more exposure to water, the more the materials break down, especially the plant matter.
I've seen machines in factories which are capable of scanning a high volume of material and separating them using computer-directed puffs of air.

Are there any manufacturers that produce these kinds of machines? Does anyone have resources or information that you could share? I'm having trouble finding anything on the topic.

Thanks

[mhorne]

Hi, I am doing my masters on a Pre-Contact Shell midden. Running into the same problem sorting fine dry material by hand under a scope. Insane the hours it takes to do the finest fraction. Did you have any success solving the problem?
Margaret