A History Cast in Stone: Geochemical Chert Sourcing Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (PXRF) in Southern Ontario

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

To test the validity of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (PXRF) for chert sourcing, thirty-two chert artifacts from the Waterloo Regional Museum in southern Ontario were compared to chert source samples. The use of PXRF in archaeology has raised questions about the method’s validity. The portable versions of XRF have lower energy outputs which in turn produces less reliable results than lab based XRF devices. Since chert can have a wide range of internal elemental variation, methods of chemical analysis become difficult. The PXRF utilized was an Olympus Vanta C Series with a silver anode X-ray tube with the Geochem (3-Beam) mode. Measurements were taken from fifty-six chert source samples. The elemental compositions of the chert source samples were compared to that of the artifacts using discriminant analysis. The results of the discriminant analysis were compared to the visual identifications of the artifacts. The two modes of sourcing had matched at a rate of 76%. The findings suggest that the PXRF may be helpful in determining chert sources, but it should be used in addition to visual identification. There are many potential pitfalls of the use of a low voltage PXRF that must be considered when attempting studies of this nature.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35746.0