Fire or Stone? Applications of Infrared Spectroscopy and the Grinding Curve Procedure to Differentiate between Pyrogenic and Geogenic Calcites at Crvena Stijena Paleolithic Rock Shelter, Montenegro

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

It is becoming ever more clear that cooperative efforts amongst researchers trained in a wide variety of archaeological and geoarchaeological specialties during the planning, excavation, and interpretation of an archaeological site are crucial to a successful study. Middle Paleolithic deposits in Level XXIV of the rock shelter at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro are the focus of such a team-based approach, which includes new microarchaeological methods to understanding site formation processes and hominin pyrotechnology. The idiosyncratic nature of cave and rock shelter sites can make their history, structure, and functions difficult to reconstruct. This is especially true when interpreting the evidence for pyrotechnological activities, which has been subject to diagenetic processes. Application of the grinding curve methodology to Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra of calcitic sediments (Regev et al. 2010) and analyses of sediment samples from micromorphology blocks have yielded encouraging results, enabling the differentiation between geogenic and pyrogenic calcites. This is particularly useful when trying to reconstruct site formation processes, in addition to providing information on site use patterns and offering insight into Neanderthal behavior.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24486