Provenance Analysis of Pottery Sherds from an Early-19th Century Milling Village in Northeast Pennsylvania

Summary

As a cost-effective and non-destructive method for multi-element analysis, portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) has the potential for broad archaeological application. Here, we employ pXRF for the compositional analysis of pottery sherds collected from Stoddartsville, an early-19th century milling village built along the upper Lehigh River in northeast Pennsylvania. Our analysis demonstrates that we can use compositional data to source pottery sherds to regional potteries, documenting the links developed between Stoddartsville and the surrounding region as the village grew into a short-lived center of trade and industry. At a more general level, our study demonstrates the potential for historical archaeologists to use compositional data, even in the absence of makers’ marks, to source historic artifacts and, in turn, develop insights into regional economies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16080