Petrographic and spectroscopic (FT-IR) study of Western Mediterranean obsidians geological sources and of a lithic collection from Ustica Island (Sicily)

I n this study we applied petrochemical methods (SEM-EDS; FT-IR) in order to characterize a group of obsidian flakes collected at Ustica island (Sicily). Despite the absence of obsidian geological outcrops, a lot of obsidian fragments still emerging from the lands of Ustica testify that the island was a major import center of obsidian during the prehistory. On this island, there are some prehistoric settlements, dated from the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age (6000- 1200 BC), in which the use of obsidian continued until the beginning of metals age. Our study includes: i) Macroscopic and microscopic optical observations, which allowed selecting 18 obsidian flakes (starting from 50 obsidian…