Application of electron microprobe analysis to identify the origin of ancient pottery production from the Castillo de Huarmey, Peru

Abstract

A vast amount of ceramics (among other grave goods) were recovered from Castillo de Huarmey, a Wari culture (650–1050 ce) archaeological site on the north coast of Peru. In order to assess ceramic production area(s) and possible trade, political or cultural interactions with other regions, and to complement earlier petrographic analysis, electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) was conducted following a rarely used methodology in archaeology. The chemical composition of individual minerals in ceramics and sediments samples from the Huarmey Valley was obtained, focusing mainly on amphiboles, feldspars and pyroxenes. The results of the analyses clearly indicate that the majority of the ceramic analysed was made of raw material of local origin.

Novel method of ancient pottery analysis based on radioactive isotope ratios: a pilot study

“…The latter has involved close cooperation with geologists and geomorphologists to develop techniques to try to identify the sources of the raw materials, petrographic methods of analysis for pottery finds, and a range of microscope type methods and devices [5]. There are several archaeometric techniques that can be used to reliably identify the origin of prehistoric ceramics: particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) [6], X-ray diffraction (XRD) [7], X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) [8][9][10][11], Mössbauer spectroscopy (EM) [12], laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) [13], neutron activated analysis (NAA) [14], Sr/Nd/Pb isotope analysis [15], electron microprobe [16] and many others [4]. Our aim was to apply a new method based on the analysis of radioactive isotope ratios to examine pottery samples from a single archaeological settlement complex that probably used the same local sources of raw materials but dating from different time periods and manufactured using different techniques.…”