Search results for "Provenance"
showing 10 items of 104 documents
THE PETROGRAPHY AND CHEMISTRY OF THIN-WALLED WARE FROM AN HELLENISTIC- ROMAN SITE AT SEGESTA (SICILY)*
2003
Samples of Roman thin-walled ware from Segesta (northwestern Sicily), dating back to the early Imperial period, were studied by optical microscopy (OM) and Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). Up to now, this class of Roman fine tableware has only occasionally been evaluated archaeometrically. Nevertheless, numerous production centres are believed to have been simultaneously active in the western Mediterranean area. Petrographic and chemical data seem to be in agreement with the archaeological hypothesis of local manufacture in Segesta for most of the analysed samples, through a comparison with kiln wasters and local raw materials. The effectiveness of thin-section petrography for determining…
Ceramics, Marbles and Stones in the Light of Neutrons: Characterization by Various Neutron Methods
2016
In this chapter we give a brief overview of neutron based analytical investigations applied to study archaeological ceramics, and different types of stones. Since the vast majority of archaeological objects are made of ceramics and various stones—all are of geological origin—, one of the key objectives of these studies to determine the origin of raw material. This research is called provenance research, and a wide range of neutron based methods are applicable in it. Following a very basic, user-oriented description of the methods, we introduce examples from our everyday practice. The examples are about provenance of prehistoric stone tools, about the sources of 4th–3rd c. B.C. millennium li…
Mineralogical and Chemical Records of Icelandic Dust Sources Upon Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard Islands)
2018
This work aims to identify the geochemical and mineralogical markers of Icelandic dust and to differentiate it from the dust of local origin deposited at the Ny-Ålesund station. We characterized representative sediment samples from Iceland and Svalbard and compared them to a set of aerosol samples collected in Ny-Ålesund to check the existence and type of the mineralogical markers. The sediment samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to detect the mineralogical constrain of the geochemical markers. Both aerosol and sediment samples were examined by scanning electron microscopy coupled with EDS microanalysis (SEM-EDS) and image analysis to detect and to provide a morpho-chemical cha…
Rutile crystals as potential trace element and isotope mineral standards for microanalysis
2009
Abstract The present paper reports trace element concentrations of 15 elements (V, Cr, Fe, Zr, Nb, Mo, Sn, Sb, Hf, Ta, W, Lu, Pb, Th and U) as well as Pb and Hf isotope data for four relatively homogeneous and large (centimeter size) rutile grains. Methods employed are SIMS, EMP, LA-ICP-MS, ID-MC-ICP-MS and TIMS. For most elements homogeneity is usually within ± 10% and occasionally variations are even narrower (± 5%), particularly in the core of two of the studied grains. The trace element concentrations of the grains span a broad compositional range (e.g., Zr concentrations are ca. 4, 100, 300 and 800 ppm). Provisional concentration values, calculated based on the homogeneity of the eleme…
Material sources of the Roman brick-making industry in the I and II century A.D. from Regio IX, Regio XI and Alpes Cottiae
2015
International audience; Bricks, fine pottery, ceramic gears and tiles are among the human-made objects routinely recovered in archaeological documentation. Sites associated with early civilizations can provide thousands of samples from a single excavation. They come in endless varieties according to economic and social circumstances and, as debris can last almost forever, provide important clues about the past behaviours in human societies. Any information about the provenance of ceramics is highly valuable in archaeological analysis. In the case of Roman brick-making, the provenance and manufacture of clayey materials are usually interpreted only by studying stamps imprinted on the artefac…
Roman quarries of the Iberian Peninsula: "Anasol" and "Anasol-type".
2007
The Iberian peninsula is rich in marble, both white and coloured, of excellent quality, used in the past (Pliny NH, XXXVI, II) and also at the present time as material for building and decoration. Many types of these marbles are similar to some, better known, Greek, Italian, Egyptian and Asian marbles. During the Roman Empire “ marmor carystium ” was extensively used. Taking into account the great similarity of this marble with the “ anasol ” and “ anasol ”-types mined in Spain and Portugal, this work presents a minero-petrographic, chemical and geochemical characterisation of these lithotypes, aiming at finding parameters to distinguish them from the better-known Greek and Italian “ cipoll…
A Mineralogical, Chemical and Isotopic Investigation of Shales from the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa, To Constrain Source Materials and Po…
2015
Major, trace and rare-earth elements were determined, together with their Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd and Pb-Pb isotopic systems, on shales from the ~3.5 to 3.1 Ga old Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa, to constrain their source materials and post-depositional evolution, on the basis of successive potential alteration impacts. A progressive change in the chemical composition has been identified from a dominant ultramafic-mafic (such as a komatiite end-member) source for the Fig Tree Group to a progressively felsic-plutonic (such as a granite end-member) provenance for the Moodies Group. The SiO 2 , K 2 O, U, Rb, Ba, and Sr contents, and the Zr/Y ratio increase upwards the stratigraphy, while the M…
Sinistral transport along the Trans-European Suture Zone: detrital zircon–rutile geochronology and sandstone petrography from the Carboniferous flysc…
2010
AbstractThe Lower Carboniferous flysch of the Istanbul Zone in Turkey is an over 1500 m thick turbiditic sandstone–shale sequence marking the onset of the Variscan deformation in the Pontides. It overlies Lower Carboniferous black cherts and is unconformably overlain by Lower Triassic continental sandstones and conglomerates. The petrography of the Carboniferous sandstones and the geochronology and geochemistry of the detrital zircons and rutiles were studied to establish the provenance of the clastic rocks. The sandstones are feldspathic to lithic greywackes and subgreywackes with approximately equal amounts of quartz, feldspar and lithic clasts. The amount of quartz and lithic fragments d…
40Ar/39Ar laser probe dating of detrital white micas from Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of the Eastern Alps: Evidence for Variscan high-pressure metam…
1997
The detritus of Cretaceous synorogenic sandstones of the northern margin of the Austroalpine microplate contains evidence for a high-pressure metamorphic basement and obducted oceanic crust exposed in early Alpine time. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar laser-probe data of detrital white micas give excellent plateau ages in a narrow range from 320 to 360 Ma. White micas cover the whole range from muscovites up to phengites (3.04 to 3.48 Si per formula unit). Heavy mineral spectra contain chrome spinel, glaucophane, chloritoid, epidote, and garnet, as well as zircon, tourmaline, and rutile. Glaucophane, chloritoid, and phengite correlate in their abundance. These minerals also correlate positively with the stabl…
Indo-Antarctic derived detritus on the northern margin of Gondwana: evidence for continental-scale sediment transport
2013
Provenance studies from Cambro-Ordovician sediments of the North Gondwana passive margin typically ascribe a North African source, a conclusion that cannot be reconciled with all observations. We present new U-Pb ages from detrital rutile and zircon from Late Ordovician sediments from Saxo-Thuringia, Germany. Detrital zircons yield age populations of 500–800 Ma, 900–1050 Ma and 1800–2600 Ma. The detrital rutile age spectra are unimodal with ages between 500 and 650 Ma and likely represent, together with the 500–800 Ma and 1800–2600 Ma zircon populations, detritus sourced predominantly from North Africa. In contrast, the c. 950 Ma zircons, which are persistently found in Cambro-Ordovician se…