OBSIDIAN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE NEAR EAST: A PROVENANCING SUCCESS STORY

Olwen Williams‐Thorpe

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Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis Mineralogy and Gemology Studies Archaeological and Geological Studies

Abstract

Obsidian provenancing studies comprise one of the most productive and successful research programmes of archaeological science. Obsidian characterization has been successful because workable obsidian is homogeneous on a small scale, analysable by a large number of methods, and is restricted to a small number of mainly readily distinguishable geological sources. Analytical, dating, source, and trade studies within the western Mediterranean, central and eastern Europe, the Aegean, and Anatolia and the Near East during the last 30 years or so are reviewed. Research has shown that distributions are mainly separate in the four regions examined, and that obsidian was traded up to 900km in the prehistoric period. Publications on obsidian in the areas under review reached a peak of frequency in the later 1970s and 1980s, but have now decreased in number. This may reflect changing fashions in archaeometric studies, and a current lack of routine application of the provenancing methods developed.

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References

1976Ancient Civilization and Trade.1977Problems in economic and social archaeology 1983Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach.1977ALTERNATIVE MODELS FOR EXCHANGE AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION 1964The Characterization of Obsidian and its application to the Mediterranean Region 1972Science and Archaeology 1960Part I, The Development of the Method 1969Further Analysis of Near Eastern Obsidians

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2001Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice 1996Obsidian Procurement and Distribution in the Central and Western Mediterranean 2001Chemical Fingerprinting and Source Tracing of Obsidian: The Central Mediterranean Trade in Black Gold 1999Archaeological obsidian studies: Method and theory 2013PXRF characterisation of obsidian from central Anatolia, the Aegean and central Europe 2008ARCHAEOLOGICAL PETROLOGY AND THE ARCHAEOMETRY OF LITHIC MATERIALS*

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