A Workflow for Uncertainty Assessment in Elemental Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics

Pashkova, Galina V.; Статкус, М. А.; Mukhamedova, Maria M.; Finkelshtein, Alexander; Abdrashitova, Irina V.; Belozerova, O. Yu.; Chubarov, Viktor; Amosova, Alena A.; Maltsev, Artem S.; Demonterova, Elena I.; Shergin, Dmitry

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4260050

Cited by 1 publication

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“…The following elements were excluded from the data due to the study [ 38 ] of heterogeneity of ceramic samples: Ca, P, and Mn. In [ 38 ], it was shown that concentrations of these elements may strongly vary within the same sample and, therefore, cannot be considered in a provenance analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combination of Total-Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence Method and Chemometric Techniques for Provenance Study of Archaeological Ceramics

et al. 2023

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The provenance study of archaeological materials is an important step in understanding the cultural and economic life of ancient human communities. One of the most popular approaches in provenance studies is to obtain the chemical composition of material and process it with chemometric methods. In this paper, we describe a combination of the total-reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) method and chemometric techniques (PCA, k-means cluster analysis, and SVM) to study Neolithic ceramic samples from eastern Siberia (Baikal region). A database of ceramic samples was created and included 10 elements/indicators for classification by geographical origin and ornamentation type. This study shows that PCA cannot be used as the primary method for provenance purposes, but can show some patterns in the data. SVM and k-means cluster analysis classified most of the ceramic samples by archaeological site and type with high accuracy. The application of chemometric techniques also showed the similarity of some samples found at sites located close to each other. A database created and processed by SVM or k-means cluster analysis methods can be supplemented with new samples and automatically classified.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%