Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry data of adhesives and adhesive ingredients used in Zambia and collected during ethnographic research

The samples included in this dataset were collected as part of an ethnographic study in May and August 2022. The Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics committee of the University of Zambia (HSSREC) approved this study (reference number HSSREC-2021-JUL-005). Many thanks to Pr. David Chuba and Ms. Florence Nyirenda at the University of Zambia and Ms. Chabwera Phiri at Livingstone Museum for providing access to the herbarium collection and advise in the specimen identification. This research was approved by the Natural Heritage Conservation Commission (NHCC) of Zambia.

The GC-MS dataset was formed between May and August 2023 as part of the Ancient Adhesives project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme Grant Agreement No. 678 804151 (Grant holder G.H.J.L.). It is being made public to act as supplementary data for publications and for other researchers to use this data in their own work. Due to the nature of the GC-MS data, all raw files have been supplied which will allow further processing in the original software.

The dataset includes 26 .zip files with the raw GC-MS data and two .xlsx files containing the processed and summarized information. Each .zip file contains the files necessary to open and manipulate the data using the original software Agilent OpenLab 2.5.