NP2 Flotation
Newton/Pendleton Froth Flotation Devices for
Archeology, Entomology, and Forensic Analysis.
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A partial list of publications and presentations highlighting these froth flotation devices during their development, testing, and use at archeological sites.
Publications by Dr. M. Pendleton concerned with froth flotation machines:

2003. "Recovery and Interpretation of Fungal Pathogens of Maize from Mimbres-Mogollon Archeological Sites." Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 74:149-154.

1988. "Appendix III: Analysis of Floral Remains from 41BP280." Excavations at the Bull Pen Site 41BP280, Colorado River Drainage, Texas. Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation, Highway Design Division, Contract Reports in Archaeology, Report Number 3, Austin, Texas, pp. 299-310.

1983. "A Comment Concerning Testing Flotation Recovery Rates." American Antiquity 48:615-616.

1983. "The Use of Flotation Recovery Standards." Transactions of the 18th Regional Archeological Symposium for Southeastern New Mexico and Western Texas, pp. 151-164.

1982. "Froth Flotation at the Richland/Chambers Project." Season One (1982) Mitigation of Prehistoric Archaeology in the Richland/Chambers Reservoir, Navarro and Freestone Counties, Texas, Interim Report. Archaeology Research Program, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, pp. 393-398.

1979. "A Comparison of Two Flotation Methods." Bulletin of the Philadelphia Anthropological Society 31:1-8.

1979. "A Flotation Apparatus for Archaeological Sites." Kiva 44:89-93.


Information concerning these flotation devices was presented by Dr. M. Pendleton (along with others mentioned) at:

"A Demonstration of Froth Flotation." Demonstration presented by Dr. Dale Newton and Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Texas Archeological Society Field School, Lubbock Lake Landmark, Lubbock, Texas, June 10, 1993.

"Recovery of Insects by Using Froth Flotation Devices." Poster presented by Dr. Bonnie Pendleton and Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Texas Society for Electron Microscopy Meeting, Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, Denton, Texas, March 25, 1994.

"Recovering Paleobotanical Materials Using Froth Flotation: Talk and Demonstration of Portable Froth Flotation Device." Demonstration and Paper presented by Dr. Dale Newton and Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory Brown-Bag Talks, J.J. Pickle Research Campus, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, September 17, 1999.
"Flotation Methodology." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 30, 1979.

"A Flotation Apparatus for Archaeological Sites." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the First Annual Conference on Ethnobiology, Prescott, Arizona, April 8, 1978.

"A Comparison of Two Flotation Methods." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Archaeological Sciences, San Diego, California, May 1, 1981.

"The Use of Flotation Recovery Standards." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, October 2, 1982.

"Buoyant and Non-buoyant Flotation Recovery Standards." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Annual Meeting of the Texas Archaeological Society, Texas A & M University Conference Center, College Station, Texas, October 30, 1982.

"Conditions Affecting Froth Flotation Recovery." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, June 14, 1983.

"Flotation Methodology." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Society for California Archaeology Data Sharing Meeting, Sacramento, California, September 29, 1979.

"A Comparison of Two Flotation Methods." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Meeting of the Society for California Archeology, Bakersfield, California, April 9, 1981.

"The Use of Flotation Recovery Standards." Paper presented by Dr. Michael Pendleton at the Annual Symposium of the Southwestern Federation of Archeological Societies, Midland, Texas, April 3, 1982.


Other Research Interests:
Dr. Pendleton is currently investigating prehistoric pottery paints, the analysis of oil-field pipe subject to cryogenic temperatures, and the prediction of damage to sorghum crops including the following works:

2010. Scanning electron microscopy characterization of carbon steel fractured by pressure while exposed to cryogenic temperatures. Microscopy and Microanalysis. Vol. 16, Supplement 2, pp. 1260-1261. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York.

2012. Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis of high carbon steel exposed to cryogenic temperatures. Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 18, Supplement 2, pp. 1938-1939. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York.

2012. Distinguishing between mineral paint and carbon paint on ancestral Puebloan pottery. Microscopy Today 20:32-36.

2012. Archeological pottery SEM-EDS analysis: a technique for SEM-EDS imaging without carbon coating. Invited article published in Imaging and Microscopy 14(4):30-31.

2012. Correlation of damage by maize weevil, Sitophilius zeamais, with starch arrangement in sectioned kernels of sorgum. Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 18, Supplement 2, pp. 268-269. Cambridge University Press, New York, New York.

2005. Morphology of sorghum grain in relation to resistance to maize weevil. International Sorghum and Millets Newsletter 46:55-57.

2015. Pollen as atmospheric cloud condensation nuclei. Geophysical Research Letters 42(9):3596-3602.

2014. Comparing the detection of iron-based pottery pigment on a carbon-coated sherd by SEM-EDS and by Micro-XRF-SEM. Invited article in Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 89:15-20.


2016. Detecting iron-based pigments on ruthenium-coated ancestral Pueblo pottery using variatle pressure scanning electron microscopy. Heritage Science 4(1), November issue. doi: 10.1186/s40494-016-0082-5.


A reevaluation of the function of Acacia sp. pollen for the inhabitants of a Classic Mimbres Pueblo ruin before the Great Abandonment. The Internet Journal of Biological Anthropology (accepted November 2017).