Sourcing Rapa Nui mata‘a from the collections of Bishop Museum using non-destructive pXRF

Abstract

On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), four geological sources of rhyolitic obsidian were utilised to manufacture obsidian artefacts, including tanged implements known as mata‘a. In the present study, a total of 332 mata‘a from the collections of Bishop Museum were analysed using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). Two analytical methods, Discriminant Function Analysis and Support Vector Machines Classification, were used to assign geographical provenance to these artefacts. These appear to be manufactured using obsidians predominantly from Orito, one of four geological sources on the island. This study demonstrates how non-destructive analyses of museum collections can contribute to our understanding of obsidian procurement and production on Rapa Nui.

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