Conclusion and Future Research

Conclusion: The results indicate that most of the button samples may be composed of a mixture of different kinds of feldspar – orthoclase, microcline, albite, and possibly sandidine. One difficulty is the high level of overlap for the peaks, making it difficult to separate the feldspars from one another and rule out the presence of sanidine. This spectra data indicates that these buttons are consitent to the time period where Prosser buttons were popular. Unlike Prosser buttons that were discovered to be made from ground quartz, these buttons were likely made of ceramic wasters, including a combination of the feldspars previously mentioned. These results contribute to the field of feldspar identification, material composition identification of archaeological artifacts, and the production profile of buttons are consistent with those in the Civil War period.

Further Work: We hope to increase the absorbance of the samples by sacrificing a small piece of the button and grinding it for better contact on the crystal. We originally sliced or chiseled the button to create small fragments that could contact the crystal, but a powder will make better contact. We could possibly use that sample to acquire Raman spectra, which provides a different but complementary view of molecular information. We tried to acquire Raman spectra with the button samples previously, but there was too much fluorescence. We would like to thank Dr. Andre Sommer of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for acquiring Raman spectra of the buttons for the project.