The Douglas Jordan Testing, Dating and Conservation Fund
by Mike Raber FOSA established a fund for radiocarbon dating in 2004, for samples in the collections of the Office of
State Archaeology (OSA) and the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History at UConn, including material from
OSA excavations.
The fund was named in honor of Douglas F. Jordan following his death in 2006. Dr. Jordan became
Connecticut's first State Archaeologist in 1963 and taught Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. You
can read about him by clicking About OSA,
and clicking his name in the far-right icon.
Beginning in 2013, FOSA has been approached by researchers with innovative projects seeking grants for
dating. The first of these projects is discussed in the article in the Fall 2015 FOSA Newsletter, a reprint
of which can be accessed by clicking
In 2014, FOSA's Board of Directors expanded the fund's potential uses beyond radiocarbon dating,
to take advantage of other developing technologies for dating archaeological samples and to allow for special
conservation measures needed for items in collections managed by OSA. The fund was then re-named the Douglas
Jordan Testing, Dating and Conservation Fund.
Current work supported by the fund includes a project by UConn graduate students (now PhD's) David Leslie
and Gabe Hrynick to establish the seasonality of archaeological sites by sampling terminal annual growth rings in
soft-shelled clams. Their work, presented in the Fall 2016 FOSA newsletter, a reprint of which can be accessed
by clicking
Your donations to the fund will allow for continued advances in dating and conserving Connecticut's past.
Editor's Note: There are a number of articles on radiocarbon dating available in this web site. You can
most easily get a list of them by accessing the