A provenance study of ceramics from Final Bronze Age sites in Corsica using non-destructive pXRF analysis

Summary

This paper presents the results of a study of Final Bronze Age ceramics in Corsica, which took place during summer 2015. More than three hundred sherds from six different sites were analyzed using a non-destructive technology, XRF (X-ray fluorescence), to identify trace elements. The use of a hand-held device allowed the archaeometric study in situ of collections preserved in the Sartene museum, which could not have been removed and sent for analysis otherwise, and their comparison with artifacts found during recent excavations, for which a more comprehensive context is available. The aim of the study is to explore, at a regional scale, the exteant of the exchanges taking place between sites located in different ecological environments, and having therefore access to different kinds of resources. In particular, it focuses on the distribution pattern of the fine ware appearing at the beginning of the period: its manufacturing process, markedly distinct from the traditional coarse ware, suggests it could have been a specialized production, obeying to a differential distribution pattern.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage