Archaeometry最新文献

Shijia Yucun site is a northwestern settlement from the Zhou period (1046–221 BCE). Faience beads used as a personal ornament and coffin decoration are notable among plenty of funerary objects. Thirteen faience objects are determined using analytical electron probe micro-analysis (EPMA) and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS). The information on their provenance indicates that the types of faience beads around bodies include the mixed-alkali faience from Europe or the Eurasian Steppe, the soda-enriched faience from West Asia, and the local products rich in potash. However, faience samples adorning coffins are all local products, and the quality is rougher compared to the faience decorating the body. This unique feature is hardly found in other tombs of Zhou elites. As faience was a precious personal ornament in other stronger polities, it was already available as a general coffin decoration in such a small-economy feudal state, so faience samples decorating coffins were not likely to be precious gifts from other elites. It is reasonable to assume that faience beads adorning coffins might have been made near the ruins. This investigation is significant to reveal the cultural exchange in the western frontier of the Zhou realm that dates back to the power decline of the Western Zhou period and highlight a possible high-potash faience production area.

Chemical and lead isotope analyses aided by metallographic examination of copper axes found at the Late Neolithic settlement of Kietrz in southwestern Poland provide new evidence for the origin of copper and metal trade routes in the region. Our results indicate that metal used for the axes could be sourced from copper mines in modern Slovakia, Bulgaria and perhaps Serbia. The evidence from this study confirms that the Funnel Beaker people from Poland became parties to a metal trading network that connected much of continental Europe in the mid-4th millennium bce and provides a better understanding of how these contacts provided the background for the technological and socio-economic developments of the Baden era.

This paper presents a study of ceramics from Northwest China from the Neolithic and Bronze Age (c. 3300–600 BCE), providing insights into variations in human–ceramic interactions over time and space. Based on macroscopic and petrographic analysis of ceramics from 10 sites, this paper shows that there is much more complexity in ceramic technology than previously thought. It identifies a development from a bi-modal distinction between painted fine ware and rusticated coarse wares shared among communities across Northwest China to strongly localised ceramic traditions with new fabrics, vessel shapes, and decorations, some of them potentially of outside origin, reflecting considerable societal change.

This study evaluates the current viability of ChatGPT as a research tool in lychnology, a discipline of archaeology focusing on the study of light use and lamps in antiquity. Prompts applicable to a common cultural heritage artifact group—the Roman clay oil lamp—were entered in ChatGPT to test its capabilities in compiling, categorizing, describing, and identifying lamp types, and to assess how accurate, detailed, and knowledgeable its responses would be.

Agricultural yield fluctuations caused by environmental and social factors in ancient China have been well recorded in extensive ancient documents; however, comparatively little is known archaeologically. This study revealed the consumption and utilization of staple cereal and possible famine food by Han Dynasty inhabitants in the Guanzhong area based on archeobotanical evidence, including plant macro-remains and phytoliths uncovered from pottery granaries and isotopic evidence from human bone collagen from Miaojiazhai cemetery. This preliminary multidisciplinary research with clear archaeological contexts provides archaeological evidence to reveal the food diversification and indicate that the possible occurrence and coping strategies to mitigate fluctuations in agricultural yields in Han Dynasty Guanzhong and broaden the understanding of the Han Dynasty agricultural economies and society.

The use of high-resolution silicone moulds for documenting bone surface modifications, such as cut marks, is common. However, it has not been evaluated whether moulding can affect the originals. In this work, the modification level derived from several moulding–demoulding processes on an experimental sample of cut marks has been characterised using geometric Morphometrics. It has been shown that moulds influence the morphology of cut marks, reducing their variability, and making the sample more homogeneous. These modifications do not affect the identification of cut marks, but if not considered, may have an effect on more specialised studies.

Unalloyed copper objects were produced in the Chalcolithic Southern Levant in a two-step process. Copper ore was smelted in pit furnaces, and the mechanically extracted copper prills melt in crucibles and cast into objects. However, the air supply remained unknown, and practical considerations shed doubt on the validity of some of the reconstructed practices. To refine the reconstruction, the metallurgical material from Abu Matar was reassessed. Most importantly, several previously unreported fragments suggest the use of bellows and covering the furnace with large pottery fragments. Our results provide probably the earliest evidence for the use of bellows.

A study of the L'MLK jar handles based on neutron activation analysis reported an average chemical composition of Roman period pottery excavated in Jerusalem. Evidence was presented supporting the idea that the pottery, made of Motza clay, was made in Jerusalem or vicinity. Recently, the validity of the group composition as well as its assignment to Jerusalem as the origin of this composition was questioned. In this article, I present the unpublished data for individual pot shards comprising the chemical group and take a new look at the data on which the reported average composition was based. It is shown that the reported group composition is valid and that the suggestion that the group represents Hebron and not Jerusalem is not convincing but commends further exploration.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) enables the determination of the composition and structure of tiny calcified remains occasionally recovered during burial excavations. To deepen the practical application of this technique, we performed SEM/EDX analysis on three different tiny mineralized, roughly rounded structures with a diameter of less than 5 mm recovered from a pre-Hispanic collective funerary cave from El Hierro (Canary Islands) and a mineral spherulite of similar size and outer aspect. After SEM imaging and spectroscopic analysis, we conclude that the three samples represent a sesamoid bone, a kidney stone, and a possible case of sialolithiasis. In contrast, the spherulite is a mineral formation composed of calcium carbonate. Our data confirm SEM analysis's usefulness in identifying small, mineralized remains recovered during burial excavations and its contribution to studying past populations. However, we are aware that taphonomic changes may alter, at least partially, the structure, and/or elemental composition of archaeological samples, obscuring differential diagnosis.

The Middle Nile Valley offers exceptional environmental conditions that allow the preservation of organic materials, including textiles. This paper presents the results of the analysis of 17 samples collected from wool, cotton, and silk textiles excavated in the ancient capital of Old Dongola from layers dated to the 17th and 18th centuries CE. Chemical analysis using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) have identified both plant and animal dyes. Locally produced textiles, mostly from wool and decorated with blue, green, orange, and yellow hues, were dyed with woad (Isatis tinctoria), flavonoid plants, and madder-type roots, which were already known and used by medieval dyers in that area. For the first time, kermes (Kermes vermilio) and lac-dye (Kerria species) have been also identified as a dye source in samples from this group. Imported fabrics, of cotton and silk, were dyed blue with woad (I. tinctoria) but also with indigo (Indigofera tinctoria); dyer's broom (Genista tinctoria) and kermes (K. vermilio) were other dyes identified in this second group. The results of this study provide the first dye identification for textiles produced in the 17th–18th c. Sudan and contribute new data to the research on textile production and trade in post-medieval Sudan.