Comparison of two analytical methods for the chemical characterization of flint from Lithuania and Belarus

Abstract

In this paper, authors present the results of interlaboratory comparison of two different methods of determining the chemical composition of Lithuanian and Belarusian flint: direct current arc emission spectrophotometry (DCAES) and energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF). For this interlaboratory comparison, geological specimens from three Lithuanian and Belarusian flint sources, previously analysed by Baltrūnas et al.(2006a), were sent to the first author for a non-destructive EDXRF analysis. All three sources were important for prehistoric tool manufacturing during Lithuanian prehistory. Non-destructive EDXRF analyses of flint may be preferred in situations where it is important to conserve archaeological artifacts, whereas DCAES is capable of analyzing more elements with precision which may be needed to identify flint with overlapping Ca / Fe compositions that cannot be separated by non-destructive EDXRF. The interlaboratory comparison results we present here illustrate the importance of international cooperation among geoscientists and archaeologists interested in applying chemical and geological methods and data to study the economic, social and cultural processes operating during different times in the prehistoric past. Key words: flint, geochemistry, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis, Lithuania, Belarus