Provenience and Provenance

The validity of the provenience posmlate must be established on a case-by-case basis. Hypothetical examples of the provenience postulate may help to illustrate this (Fig. 8.1a-d). 

An ideal provenience study would involve a natural material, the composition of which remains unaltered after extraction, only a small number of possible sources, an adequate number of samples from each source to adequately assess their compositional variation, and one or more combinations of elements or compounds that adequately distinguish the sources. Just as there is no proverbial spherical cow, such ideal materials are almost as rare. 

Obsidian comes as close as any material can to this situation. It is restricted to 

For most other raw materials, the number of sources cannot be so easily constrained. Even for obsidian, new sources are frequently being discovered that were 

Thus ceramic studies tend to have a regional focus in the hopes that differences can be found between the ceramics made by different people. Although some labs include regional clay samples in their analyses for comparison, most ceramic studies necessarily take an empirical approach in ceramic samples, as sets, sometimes with known provenience, are compared with other sets to see if they can be distinguished. 

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The place of origin of prehistoric people can also be determined. The isotopic proveniencing of human remains, using ratios of strontium isotopes, has been employed in archaeology for approximately 20 years. Strontium isotope analyses have been used successfully in a number of studies. The basic principle involves comparison of isotope ratios in human tooth enamel with local levels in bone or other materials. Because isotopic ratios vary geographically, values in human teeth (marking place of birth) that differ from the local ratio (place of death) indicate migration. This method of analysis is described in more detail in Chap. 8, Provenience and Provenance. 

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