Provenance (Other Keyword)
1-21 (21 Records)
The archaeological record of Eastern Beringia plays an important role in understanding global human dispersals and settlement, and is a proving ground for testing ideas about high latitude hunter-gatherer land use, technology, and socioeconomic interaction. Obsidian provenance studies provide an excellent means to address these issues. Since 2006 we have compiled, organized and generated new obsidian geochemical analyses for more than 11,000 artifacts from 1200 sites across Alaska and Yukon...
Analysis of Culturally Derived Speleothem by INAA: An Analytic Approach to Sourcing (2018)
Recent investigations in various surface and underground cave sites indicate the existence of extensive political, economic, religious and military exchanges between polities in the Maya lowlands of Belize. The occurrence of "foreign" materials at surface and cave sites have become an increasingly well-documented phenomenon (Brady et al. 1997) and are indicative of transport of speleothems during ancient Maya cave visitations. This phenomenon has raise several questions such as the spatial...
Analysis of Two Sherds Recovered from an Underwater Site along the Atlantic Coast of Terra del Fuego, Argentina (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Plus Ultra: An examination of current research in Spanish Colonial/Iberian Underwater and Terrestrial Archaeology in the Western Hemisphere." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Two sherds recovered from an underwater site along the Atlantic coast of Terra del Fuego, Argentina were analyzed by neutron activation analysis (NAA) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The...
Assessing Mobility and Social Interactions through Integrated Analyses of Complicated Stamped Pottery in the American Southeast (2015)
In the Deep South of the American Southeast, regional scale social interactions burgeoned alongside the growth of nucleated villages, widespread mound-building projects, and conspicuous mortuary ceremonialism during the Middle and Late Woodland period (ca. AD 100 to 800). A premier material for understanding the significance of social interactions across the southern landscape comes from Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery, a ubiquitous class of material culture that provides direct evidence...
Assessing the Suitability of Southern Africa for Archaeological Provenance Studies with Lead Isotopes (2018)
Evidence for trade between southern Africa and the Muslim world dates back to the 8th century CE. However, it is not until the 12th and 13th centuries, with the discovery of alluvial gold in southern Africa, that entanglement between the two regions intensified. As a result, state-level societies emerged and began incorporating aspects of the Muslim identity into their own culture. With the intensification of these trade relations, craftsmen began expanding their repertoire of iron and copper...
THE BLUE STONES FROM CHIAPA DE CORZO: MINERALOGICAL IDENTIFICATION AND MANUFACTURE (2016)
Since the beginning of Mesoamerican societies, the elites employed prestige goods to display their power and status. At Chiapa de Corzo (Chiapas, México), a Formative period site that lasted until the late Classic, the archaeologist recovered a group of ornaments crafted on bluish stones that contrasts with the common greenstone objects found at the tombs. In this paper, we present the mineralogical identification and technological analysis of them in order to discuss their local or foreign...
The “Bronze Age” of Southern Africa: Insights from Isotopes and Trace Elements (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science and African Archaeology: Appreciating the Impact of David Killick" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Southern Africa project (2015–present) uses lead and tin isotopes plus trace element concentrations to infer the geological provenance of copper and tin in Iron Age copper alloys, and to investigate the behaviors responsible for moving these objects from their geological source to the eventual...
Establishing provenance for chert from southern Baffin Island: a multi-scalar approach (2017)
Difficulties in physically or chemically distinguishing between chert from closely situated quarries have made a multi-scalar approach to chert provenance analysis necessary in some regions. We present the preliminary results of a multi-scalar chert provenance project focused on the eastern Canadian Arctic. On a regional scale, we examine ICP-MS trace element results for chert from two quarries and five archaeological sites on southern Baffin Island. Chert from the quarries and archaeological...
Geochemical Insights on Earth Mineral Pigment Provisioning and Use in Stone Age Eswatini (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present results of a multi-method, regional-scale iron and manganese-oxide provenance study centered on five Middle and Late Stone Age sites and raw material sources in Eswatini. Earth mineral pigment artifacts are abundant at MSA and LSA sites and the variation observed in their typologies shows changes over time...
Geographical origin assignment of sheep wool textiles using light stable isotopes (2015)
Identifying which of a group of material cultural objects is non-local has long been part of artefact analysis in archaeology. Identifying the movement of objects, and the movement of ideas about how to make and use objects, is important to understanding physical and ideological links between sites. This work has relied on data from typological, technological and chemical analyses of object construction and use. Textiles made from sheep wool were a highly valuable commodity which was traded...
Integrating Petrographic and INAA Compositional Data: Chupadero Black-on-white Ceramic Production and Distribution in the Salinas and Sierra Blanca regions of New Mexico (2015)
Ceramic research in the American Southwest is increasingly relying on both mineralogical and chemical compositional data to answer questions regarding pottery production and exchange. Due to differences in the structure and nature of these datasets, integrative studies that attempt to incorporate information on both types of compositional data often produce confusing and sometimes seemingly contradictory results. This paper explores the recently developed ‘mixed-mode’ method of data analysis,...
Lithic Raw Material Procurement at the Multicomponent Prehistoric Wansack Site (36ME61), Mercer County, Pennsylvania: Evidence for Mobility and Trade Patterns through XRF Data (2015)
The Wansack Site (36ME61) is a multicomponent, prehistoric site located in western Pennsylvania (Mercer County). Four seasons of excavation (1974-1977) yielded ample evidence of occupation spanning the Archaic, Woodland, and Late Prehistoric. The present study analyzes the patterns of raw material procurement, seen through the lithic artifacts collected from the site. The primary method utilized to do this is X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Samples of chert from Flint Ridge, Upper Mercer, and...
Long distance provenances of jewelry (variscite & turquoise) along Atlantic Europe during the Neolithic (5th -3rd millenium) based on PIXE Analysis (2017)
The exceptional quality of the green lithic adornments (jade axes, beads) deposited in the large grave mounds from Brittany, France, constitute the most impressive funeral architecture of the Neolithic period in Western Europe. The highest density of callaïs jewelry occurs in the Carnac region with over 800 green beads and pendants found in 33 Neolithic sites. A research program based on the chemical analysis of archaeological artifacts and geological samples from European deposits using the...
Microfossils and Micro-XRF: sourcing raw materials for Iron Age to Romano-British pottery production at Burrough Hill hillfort, UK (2015)
Burrough Hill hillfort, east Leicestershire, United Kingdom, is an example of an Iron Age settlement of the Corieltauvi people who occupied the East Midlands in the millennium prior to the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 43. The hillfort is set in a sedimentary landscape with few distinctive rock types. Objectives of the current study are to determine signatures of the local sedimentary deposits, building materials and pottery using ceramic petrography, micropalaeontology, WDXRF and micro-XRF....
Petrographic and geochemical evidence reveals the local focus of interaction throughout Samoa’s prehistory (2015)
Bill Dickinson’s extensive and unequaled ceramic petrographic research has identified spatial patterns of artefact production and population interaction across the Pacific Islands. In Samoa his work on ceramic collections suggests a largely local focus of production and distribution. We combine Dickinson’s ceramic petrography with all available geochemical analyses of ceramics, basalt and obsidian artefacts, and demonstrate local-scale production and movement for all of these artefact classes....
Photogrammetry, Provenance, and Preservation of Tangible Heritage in the Khangai Mountains, Mongolia (2017)
This study presents results from the photogrammetric documentation of rock art in western Mongolia. Unlike many traditional rock art documentation techniques practiced in Mongolia, photogrammetry presents unique advantages for the study and preservation of cultural heritage. These include the production of a digital 3D model, preservation of color and original lighting conditions, ease of documentation, and the inclusion of contextual information such as surrounding features, panel orientation,...
Provenance and Distribution of Neo-Punic Ceramics at Zita, Southern Tunisia, and Beyond. (2017)
The site of Zita is an urban mound located in southern Tunisia and situated along an ancient trade route from Carthage to Tripoli. It is the highest point on a peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea across from the Island of Djerba, often identified as the Island of Calypso of the Lotus-Eaters from the Odyssey. Established as a Carthaginian settlement around 500 BCE, the city became a Roman regional center in the 1st century CE. Zita still has industrial features such as ceramic kilns and...
The provenance of Nueva Cadiz beads: a chemical approach (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Glass Beads: Global Artefacts, Local Perspectives", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. We conducted a chemical analysis of Nueva Cadiz from two 16th-century collections, originating from the namesake Nueva Cádiz site in Venezuela (1498–1543) and a pillaged site in Tiahuanaco, Bolivia. The two collections yielded similar results and we may infer they came from the same production centre. Here we focus on their...
Provenance Study of Obsidian Artifacts from the Neolithic Settlement Masis Blur (Armenia) using Portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (2015)
Over the past two decades, provenance research on obsidian from Armenia has been on the rise, primarily for provenience purposes, however, with only few studies on obsidian archaeological artifacts. In these studies, the geochemical characterization of obsidian artifacts and geological sources was carried out using different laboratory-based techniques such as INAA, ICP-MS and XRF. The current project presents preliminary results obtained with a portable XRF (pXRF) on the chemical...
Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Some Observations on Petrographic Indicators of Residential Mobility Patterns in Canadian Great Lakes and Arctic Regions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The manufacture and consumption of material goods by households and communities is shaped significantly by residential mobility patterns, and the reasons why people moved around the landscape in the past are as varied, as they are today. A variety of kinds of mobility have been...
Strontium provenancing wooden artefacts from Pitch Lake, Trinidad (2017)
Several wooden artefacts were found at Pitch Lake, Trinidad, one of the world's largest asphalt 'lakes', and a recent dating programme has shown that they range from ca. AD 600 to 3000 BC. This paper reports on the investigation of their provenance through strontium isotope analysis, with the aim of establishing whether the artefacts were made locally or were imports from other regions of Trinidad or even beyond the island. A major challenge of working with wooden artefacts found in Pitch Lake...