Abstract
The characterization of archaeological ceramics according to their chemical composition provides essential information about the production and distribution of specific pottery wares. If a correlation between compositional patterns and local production centers is assumed, pottery manufacturing and trade and, more generally, economic, political, as well as cultural relations between communities and regions can be investigated. In the present paper, the combined application of portable XRF and statistical analysis to the investigation of a large repertory of ceramic fragments allowed us to group the assemblage by identifying geochemical clusters. The results from the chemical and statistical analysis were then compared with reference ceramic samples from the same area, as well as with macroscopic and petrographic observations to confirm, coalesce or sub-divide putative sub-divisions. The study of 141 samples from different sites located within a wide area spanning across the Colline Metallifere and the coast (Monterotondo Marittimo, Roccastrada, Donoratico, and Vetricella) provided new clues for a new interpretive archaeological framework that suggests that there was a well-defined organization of pottery manufacturing and circulation across southern Tuscany during the early medieval period.
Highlights
The characterization of archaeological ceramics according to their elemental composition provides essential information about the circulation and consumption of specific pottery wares in the territory [1].In recent years, the application of pXRF analysis to archaeological issues has become attractive in many ways
The characterization of archaeological ceramics according to their chemical composition provides essential information about the production and distribution of specific pottery wares
The combined application of portable XRF and statistical analysis to the investigation of a large repertory of ceramic fragments allowed us to group the assemblage by identifying geochemical clusters
Summary
The characterization of archaeological ceramics according to their elemental composition provides essential information about the circulation and consumption of specific pottery wares in the territory [1]. Even though pXRF cannot substitute traditional analytical methods as a general elemental provenance-identifying procedure for ceramics, it can represent an extremely powerful alternative in cases where the internal grouping of ‘closed’ populations of delicate and/or highly abundant repertories is required [19]. The initial extensive pXRF screening of large ceramic repertories promotes the preliminary definition of compositional clusters and outliers which can provide a selection of the most representative samples to be further investigated via more sensitive analytical methods. The in-depth characterization of selected samples, based on chemical grouping, can help to refine the data processing by providing further indications about those elements which could properly describe the chemical dataset [5,55] Within this framework, the present study aims to validate the great potential of pXRF to help with the investigation of a large repertory of pottery samples. In view of the results, the advantages of the application of a tailored analytical method to a set of reference samples are discussed together with some preliminary outcomes that have resulted from the analysis of samples which have an unknown provenance
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