Abstract
BackgroundPortable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pEDXRF) spectrometry analysis was applied for the characterisation of archaeological ceramic findings from three Neolithic sites in Serbia. Two dimension reduction techniques, principal component analysis (PCA) and scattering matrices-based dimension reduction were used to examine the possible classification of those findings, and to extract the most discriminant features.ResultsA decision-making procedure is proposed, whose goal is to classify unknown ceramic findings based on their elemental compositions derived by pEDXRF spectrometry. As a major part of decision-making procedure, the possibilities of two dimension reduction methods were tested. Scattering matrices-based dimension reduction was found to be the more efficient method for the purpose. Linear classifiers designed based on the desired output allowed for 7 of 8 unknown samples from the test set to be correctly classified.ConclusionsBased on the results, the conclusion is that despite the constraints typical of the applied analytical technique, the elemental composition can be considered as viable information in provenience studies. With a fully-developed procedure, ceramic artefacts can be classified based on their elemental composition and well-known provenance.
Highlights
Portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analysis was applied for the characterisation of archaeological ceramic findings from three Neolithic sites in Serbia
Non-destructive characterisation The elemental compositions resulting from Portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pEDXRF) measurements of 67 investigated samples were used to form a training data set (TRS) as 67 × 10 matrix
The TRS comprised the intensity results reported as the average net peak area values for X-rays detected over 100 s of live counts for ten elements: Si, K, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Zn, Rb, Sr and Zr, chosen so that net peak area uncertainty remained below 10%
Summary
Portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pEDXRF) spectrometry analysis was applied for the characterisation of archaeological ceramic findings from three Neolithic sites in Serbia. Archaeological ceramics can be studied in the context of origin of production or production technologies, as well as the distribution of specific ware types or whole assemblages [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] Such studies have at their disposal an arsenal of different techniques, both analytical [10,11,12,13,14,15,16] and statistical [17,18,19,20], to arrive at answers to archaeological issues. One of the non-destructive techniques that have been most commonly used is energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry proven to be efficient and Different supervised as well as unsupervised multivariate statistical methods are widely and successfully used in archaeometric data analysis. Discussion on applied dimension reduction technique regarding its validity from the aspect of information loss can be rarely found in the literature
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