Archaeology compositional analysis

Freestone, I. C. (2005), The provenance of ancient glass through compositional analysis, in Vandiver, P. B., J. L. Mass, and A. Murray (eds.), Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology VII (Symposium, November 30-December 3, 2004, Boston, Massachusetts), Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, Vol. 852, Materials Research Society, Warrendale, Pennsylvania. 

Jackson, C.M. (1992). A Compositional Analysis of Roman and Early Post-Roman Glass and Glassworking Waste from Selected British Sites. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford. 

During archaeological surveys in the Department of Arequipa, Sarah Brooks located two additional obsidian sources and collected geological samples from each for NAA. A secondary source deposit was found 5 km west of Chivay near the pre-Inca archaeological site of Uyo Uyo. The second obsidian source named Caylloma was found about 14 km northwest of the town of Caylloma in a northern province of Arequipa by that name. Compositional analysis of both sources failed to match the data for any artifacts. Thus, it is believed that neither source was used prehistorically. 

As compositional analysis has become more routine in archaeological investigations, deficiencies in the numerical techniques used for data reduction and summary have become more apparent. A brief overview of techniques commonly used in the analysis of compositional data is presented as well as an example illustrating how data modeling (as opposed to data summary) can facilitate both the recognition of relevant data structure and inferences from data structure to underlying natural and cultural processes. 

Compositional analysis of archaeological materials entails a series of nondiscrete steps of research design ... 

A data matrix produced by compositional analysis commonly contains 10 or more metric variables (elemental concentrations) determined for an even greater number of observations. The bridge between this multidimensional data matrix and the desired archaeological interpretation is multivariate analysis. The purposes of multivariate analysis are data exploration, hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing, and data reduction. Application of multivariate techniques to data for these purposes entails an assumption that some form of structure exists within the data matrix. The notion of structure is therefore fundamental to compositional investigations. 

Stoltman, J.B. Mainfort, R.C., Jr. 2002. Minerals and elements Using petrography to reconsider the findings of neutron activation in the compositional analysis of ceramics from Pinson Mounds, Tennessee. Midcontinent Journal of Archaeology IT. 1-33. 

Bishop, R.L., R.L. Rands, and G.R. Holley. 1982. Ceramic composition analysis in archaeological... 

Vaughn, K.I, Conlee, C.A., Neff, H., Schreiber, K.J. (2005) A compositional analysis of Nasca polychrome paints implications for craft production on the pre-Hispanic south coast of Peru. In Laser Ablation ICP-MS in Archaeological Research, edited by Speakman, R.J., Neff) H. Albuquerque, NM University of New Mexico Press, pp. 138-154. 

Beck, M., Neff, H. (2007) Hohokam and Patayan interaction in Southwestern Arizona evidence from ceramic compositional analysis./owmal of Archaeological Science, 34,289-300. 

The chapters that comprise this volume provide a cross section of current research conducted in the area of chemistry applied to archaeological questions. Each presents an example of the chemical analytical investigation of archaeological materials and the use of the analytical data in discerning patterns of human behavior. New developments in dating and compositional analysis are described. Differing views of the definition of nondestructive are presented. 

Carlson, S. B. James, W. D., Carlson, D. L. Compositional Analysis of Spanish Colonial Ceramics The Texas Missions. Paper Presented at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1994. 

Most of the essential information on archaeological materials is derived, at the present time, using physical methods of analysis. This may include the qualitative or quantitative assessment of their composition, their provenance, the techniques used for their production, and their age. Some of the most widely used methods of chemical analysis based on physical principles are succinctly reviewed in the following paragraphs. 

The results show that DE-MS alone provides evidence of the presence of the most abundant components in samples. On account of the relatively greater difficulty in the interpretation of DE-MS mass spectra, the use of multivariate analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) of DE-MS mass spectral data was used to rapidly differentiate triterpene resinous materials and to compare reference samples with archaeological ones. This method classifies the spectra and indicates the level of similarity of the samples. The output is a two- or three-dimensional scatter plot in which the geometric distances among the various points, representing the samples, reflect the differences in the distribution of ion peaks in the mass spectra, which in turn point to differences in chemical composition of... 

Although analytical procedures based on GC/MS analysis usually involve a relatively long analysis time, requiring a wet chemical pretreatment of the samples, they are unsurpassed in their capacity to unravel the molecular composition of the lipids used in works of art and in archaeological findings at a molecular level. In addition to obtaining a qualitative molecular profile, GC permits quantitative or semi-quantitative measurements on specific molecules. 

---