The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental archaeology invites you to a seminar with Mattias Sjölander, "Semi-quantitative petrographic characterization of Bronze Age quartzite tools – discussion of a multivariate approach".
Abstract : Northern Fennoscandia represents a geologically complex region with both glacial and postglacial processes having an impact on the archaeology. The widely distributed moraine makes provenience studies difficult, and there is a severe lack of methodological development in the characterization of local geological materials used for tool making. The question is how to approach provenience studies in a region where there is a lack of reference samples as well as documentation of known geological sources. Quartz and quartzite are two central material types utilized among hunter-gatherers in Northern Sweden, and thus important to the understanding of raw material procurement and material flow within the region. A dataset of 445 quartz and quartzite points were analyzed non-destructively with three separate spectroscopic instrumentations, including Near-Infrared, Raman scattering and X-Ray Fluorescence. The aim was to test whether non-destructive application of these spectroscopic techniques can distinguish between different quartz and quartzite types. In order to do this multivariate modelling of the spectral data was performed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in which the features observed in the spectra become the basis of the clustering within the model. While the results demonstrate that there are a number of structural and compositional differences within the dataset it is difficult to identify any distinct classes of material based on any singular technique. The features identified do, however, provide good grounds for survey efforts and the identification of potential geological origin of some of the material. Future efforts will endeavor to model the joint relations between the separate blocks in order to test whether the combined information can help in discerning different material classes.
This seminar will be held online in Zoom. Link for paticipation is sent via email to all employees within the subject well in advance of the seminar. If you do not have a participant link, contact the seminar organizers below.
The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental Archaeology presents and discusses current research in archaeology and environmental archaeology.
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