Historical archaeologists rely on written documents to provide contextual information on broadscale trends in resource consumption and the availability of materials. Often, this is the only approach applied to historical assemblages and subtle variations in technologies, resource procurement, reuse or raw materials procurement are not captured. While still rare in historical archaeology, analytical methods commonly used in archaeological science are beginning to fill this gap, particularly in colonial contexts where populations were establishing themselves in unfamiliar landscapes without access to stable, familiar resources. We invite papers for this session focused on analytical, novel and rare approaches to historical assemblages that go beyond associated historical written documentation and contribute to our understanding of these assemblages.