Using Isotopic Geochemistry to Relate Ceramics to Raw Materials

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The provenance of ceramics assessed through chemistry is most commonly approached through a comparison of ceramics with other ceramics of known origin. More rarely are chemical analyses employed to relate objects to their geological context. This problem derives from the inherent limitations of elemental analysis and is commonly found in studies that employ a single- rather than multiproxy approach. Among available proxies, isotopic geochemistry offers the advantage of preserving the signatures of different raw materials used to produce ceramics. Here, we present studies involving the isotopic analysis of ceramics and raw materials from multiple contexts in Mesoamerica and the Mediterranean region. These studies demonstrate the strength of the approach for associating ceramics to their raw material, how new insights are gained by identifying the geological context, and the importance of integrating the isotopic approach with methods of elemental chemistry and mineralogy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39790.0