No Source, No Problem: Evaluating Connectedness from Geochemical Analysis of Pottery with a New Python Tool

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Compositional analysis techniques, such as laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) in combination with petrographic analysis, have been used to generate high resolution comparison of clay sources, pottery, and pottery manufacture sites. Studies that utilize these methods provide strong evidence for intrasite interactions. This paper aims to lower the barrier to entry for researchers interested in the network analysis possibilities of chemical analysis. We present a new tool in Python called ArchyConnect that aids in the rapid analysis of compositional data and ease of collaboration. We also focus on a type of network analysis, connectedness, that simultaneously provides strong inferences about past interactions and is a more feasible supplement to provenance studies. Connectedness allows us to see useful information from pottery assemblages even when the geographic location of the source of clay or temper is unknown. It also provides a strong framework for diachronic network analysis across sites. We believe that these two innovations vastly expand both the amount of useful ceramic data available to archaeologists, and the number of archaeologists who can contribute.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39390.0