Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Radiogenic isotopic systems (e.g., Sr, Nd, Os, Pb) have become widely applied for inferring the geological sources of archaeological materials and for reconstructing technologies integral to their production. Large databases of geological materials (including GlobaLID, IberLID, and Killick et al. [2020]) are now contributing to the growth of these analyses and helping increase access to necessary data for their interpretation. Despite this rise in the use of these techniques and the resources available to these studies, the interpretation of isotopic ratios in archaeological materials is often attempted without a clear understanding of how geological processes produce natural variation or how technological processes (smelting, alloying, recycling, mixing, etc.) can alter isotopic ratios of natural materials. Therefore, we invite papers that address these issues and incorporate geological and/or technological foci for the interpretation of radiogenic isotopic data in archaeological materials.

Other Keywords
Material Culture and Technology • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Metallurgical Analysis • Iron Age • Trade and exchange • Isotopic Analysis • Craft Production • Historic • Mississippian • Bronze Age

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • Republic of Turkey (Country) • Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Country) • Italian Republic (Country) • State of Israel (Country) • Lebanese Republic (Country) • Syrian Arab Republic (Country) • West Bank (Country) • North America (Continent) • Hellenic Republic (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Assessing the Origin of Wares from Sardis through Sr-Pb Isotopic Analysis (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Czujko. Virginie Renson. Michael Glascock. Maria Verde. Marcus Rautman.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of isotopic analysis of ceramic sherds and locally sourced soils that contribute to our understanding of the origin of ancient Sardis’s ceramic corpus and help clarify the site’s role within the larger interaction network of western Anatolia. A previous study...

  • Considering Pb Mixing in Lead Isotope Analysis (LIA) of Tin Artifacts (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Wayne Powell. Ryan Mathur.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. LIA of tin metal must consider the U-Th-Pb characteristics of cassiterite ore. The initial Pb content of cassiterite is <1 ppm and Th is <0.005 ppm. However, it contains as much as 50 ppm U. Therefore, 206 Pb and 207 Pb accumulate over time, potentially allowing the definition of an isochron....

  • Glass Provenance Studies Using Isotopes and the Nuances of Geological Inputs and Influences (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Fenn.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Advances in both analytical techniques used to examine archaeological materials and in our understanding of various isotope systems have led to an efflorescence of research that applies isotopic analyses to questions of provenance in ancient glass materials. While initial isotopic studies of...

  • GlobaLID: A New Research Data Infrastructure for Lead Isotope Data (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Rose. Sabine Klein. Katrin Westner. Yiu-Kang Hsu.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lead isotope data are an important tool for the reconstruction of raw material provenances of non-ferrous archaeological materials. The quality of the provenance reconstruction depends, among other factors, on the comprehensiveness of the reference data the archaeological samples can be compared...

  • Lead Isotope Analysis Providing Insights Regarding Pecos Pueblo's Role in Spanish Colonial New Mexico (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Haecker. Virginie Renson. Jay Stephens.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pecos was one of the major Puebloan communities in New Mexico from circa AD 1450 until the 1790s. As the nexus of an interregional-intercultural network, this pueblo became a dominant economic force in Pueblo-Plains-Hispanic interactions throughout most of the Spanish colonial period. A metal...

  • Mill Cove Complex Native Copper: A Lead Isotopic Study (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherman Johns. Jay Stephens. Virginie Renson. Keith Ashley.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Long-distance movement of copper across North America is often noted by archaeologists but little studied, with its provenance typically assumed to be the Great Lakes region. Such claims need to be tested, and recent studies have approached this problem using laser-ablation instrumentation to...

  • Using Isotopic Geochemistry to Relate Ceramics to Raw Materials (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginie Renson. Maria Verde. Alberto De Bonis. Wesley Stoner. Hector Neff.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The provenance of ceramics assessed through chemistry is most commonly approached through a comparison of ceramics with other ceramics of known origin. More rarely are chemical analyses employed to relate objects to their geological context. This problem derives from the inherent limitations of...

  • White Iron and Red Gold: How to Identify Tin, Copper, and Bronze Derived from Rooiberg Mineral Deposits, South Africa (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jay Stephens. David Killick. Shadreck Chirikure.

    This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tin and copper ores around Rooiberg, South Africa, were exploited from 1000–1300 CE until about 1840. Geologists estimated that around 1,000 tons of the tin mineral cassiterite, equivalent to 792 tons of metallic tin, were mined there. Archaeological survey showed only a small amount of evidence...