Obsidian provenance studies of Transylvania's Neolithic tools using PIXE, micro-PIXE and XRF

Abstract

Obsidian is a natural volcanic glass, which was widely used for prehistoric stone tools and traded over long distances. In the case of Transylvania (the north-western part of Romania), the sources of the prehistoric tools are supposed to be Tokaj Mountains, Greek islands, Armenia and Turkish-Asia Minor. We used PIXE and XRF to analyse various obsidian tools from the above sources. The two-dimensional scatter plots of Ti/Mn versus Rb/Zr and Ba/Ce versus Y/Zr were considered as source indicators. On the basis of these classifications, the majority of the Transylvania's obsidian prehistoric tools were determined as coming from either Hungarian or Slovakian Tokaj Mountains.