Abstract
The identification of mineral supply sources and trade routes are at the heart of the archaeological issues. The tracing of sources of metal production via lead isotopy has been used since the 1980s to identify the deposits from which the metal constituting the archaeological objects came. Such studies are based on mineral signature repositories and archaeologists have thus built up databases containing thousands of ore deposit analyses. The databases, however, only very rarely include geological information and are limited to geographic information. But considering only geographical data leads to many limitations of studies, including the overlapping of signatures between remote regions. This problem could nevertheless be circumvented by taking into account precise ore deposit data that enables to think in terms of restricted mineralized subsets. We illustrate this through the example of data collected in the Alps by Marcoux (1986) and Nimis et al. (2012). Taking into account geological data (and more specifically, gitological data) could thus considerably improve the accuracy of provenance interpretations and enable multivariate statistical processing to be carried out (these statistical treatments are inconclusive if they are carried out on purely geographical data). However, remains the problem of the thousands of ore analyses carried out without having defined their mineralization context. Although still imperfect (some contexts are not individualized), the use of a statistical treatment could nevertheless be used to identify the gitological contexts.
Highlights
Lead has four stable isotopes: the isotope 204Pb witch is primitive; 206Pb, 207Pb and 208Pb witch are radiogenic1
Could lead isotopic measurements from geological research be integrated into archaeological provenance studies? What could be the contribution of taking into account geological contexts for provenance studies? Could it improve the tracing of production sources?
A solution allowing a clear distinction between these contexts can be provided through the use of gitological data. Taking under account those data allow a more accurate response to our provenance study. This can be seen in a bivariate diagram: if we draw the diagram 208Pb/204Pb vs 206Pb/204Pb, we can note that the geological contexts are well individualized (Fig. 3): the different types of ore deposits can be underlines by their alignment along regression curves
Summary
Lead has four stable isotopes: the isotope 204Pb witch is primitive; 206Pb, 207Pb and 208Pb witch are radiogenic. Metallic copper, silver artifacts, and pigments, contain lead in very small quantities This presence of lead in the form of traces comes from the ore that was used to shape the object and its (lead) isotopic signature can be researched. Lead isotopic studies have so been used since the late 1980s to identify the source of the metal used to produce an artifact found in an archaeological context. This type of study is commonly referred to as provenance studies and lead isotopic analyses are an important part of the analyses carried out in the archaeological studies. Could lead isotopic measurements from geological research be integrated into archaeological provenance studies? What could be the contribution of taking into account geological contexts (and not just a geographical origin) for provenance studies? Could it improve the tracing of production sources?
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