Principal Investigator Dorothy Hosler
Artifact analyses, ethnographic field studies, and sixteenth century Spanish documents indicate that Ancient Mexican peoples harvested latex from Castilla Elastica and processed it using liquid extracted from Ipomoea alba (a species of morning glory vine), producing solid rubber balls, sandals, and other rubber artifacts. Chemical and mechanical analyses of the latex and processed rubber indicate that enhanced elastic behavior of the rubber relative to the unprocessed latex is due to purification of the polymer component and to an increase in the interchain interactions induced by sulfur-containing organic compounds sulfonyl chloride and sulfonic acid) present in I. alba.
Ongoing research explores whether elasticity and other properties crucial to artifact design and performance were engineered to meet specific functional requirements.