Non-destructive PXRF analysis of museum-curated obsidian from the Near East

摘要

Non-destructive pXRF has the potential to expand sample populations of archaeological provenancingstudies by facilitating access to museum collections of artefacts. In this study, we use museum-curatedobsidian for the sites of Tell Brak, Mersin-Ymktepe and Tell Arpachiyah and geological obsidiansamples from central Turkey to demonstrate that non-destructive pXRF is comparable to other techniquesin differentiating between Near Eastern obsidian sources. Secondly, we use multivariate analysisto evaluate whether non-destructive pXRF is sufficiently accurate and precise to enable comparison withlegacy datasets from previous analysis using PIXE and ICP-MS. Multivariate analyses show that instrumentaloffsets between the results from pXRF and other analytic techniques are less than source-tosourcevariation typical for most Anatolian obsidian outcrops and pXRF-identified geochemical groupsare directly comparable to legacy datasets. Non-destructive pXRF analysis indicates that during theChalcolithic, East Gollu dag and Nenezi dag continued to be the major sources of obsidian to communitiesin central Anatolia and the Bing?l range and mountains surrounding Lake Van supplied sites east ofthe Levant. Variations in the analysed assemblages suggest a number of obsidian exchange networksexisted during this period.