From Cyprus, or to Cyprus? A pilot study with osmium isotopy and siderophile trace elements to reconstruct the origin of corroded iron billets from the Kyrenia shipwreck

Schwab, Roland; Brauns, Michael; Fasnacht, Walter; Katzev, Susan Womer; Lockhoff, Nicole; Swiny, Helena Wylde

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103365

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“… 58 ]. A promising approach is the analysis of Os isotopic ratios developed by M. Brauns and co-authors [ 59 – 61 ]. A combination of Os isotopic ratios and major and trace elements, the latter processed by the PCA-AHC method, was applied by Ph.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old wine into new wineskins? “Legacy data” in research on Roman Period East Germanic iron smelting

Żabiński,

Gramacki,

Gramacki

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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This paper discusses the use of “legacy data” in research on Roman Period iron smelting in the territory of the Przeworsk Culture in Magna Germania. The dataset includes results of 240 analyses of smelting slag and iron ores chemistry. A majority of these analyses were conducted in the 1950s-1980s. The quality of these data is far below present-day standards. Only major elements were reported, analytical methods were often not specified (although optical emission spectroscopy and wet chemical analyses can be assumed in such cases) and information on detection limits, precision and accuracy of the results is missing. In spite of this, a Principal Component Analysis-Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering treatment successfully isolated observations from the three main iron smelting regions of the Przeworsk Culture (the Holy Cross Mountains, Masovia and Silesia). These results to a degree confirm a theory proposed in the 1960s by J. Piaskowski, according to whom it was possible to distinguish iron produced in the Holy Cross Mountains from the iron produced elsewhere in the territory of what is now Poland on the basis of metal characteristics. These findings will pave the way to the ongoing research project on the Przeworsk Culture metallurgy. It is also argued that, apart from a search for new methods in iron provenance studies, more attention should be paid to results of earlier analyses and to a compilation of legacy databases. The other result is an open and flexible Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering R code to examine discrimination between production areas and to propose artefact provenance patterns in a convenient interactive way using the R development environment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old wine into new wineskins? “Legacy data” in research on Roman Period East Germanic iron smelting

Żabiński,

Gramacki,

Gramacki

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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“…The aims, as described previously, were twofold: to identify ores that were suitable for bloomery smelting, that is, rich in iron, and determine whether these can be discerned chemically and/or isotopically from one another. As the potential of Os isotope analysis for determining iron provenance was reported previously (Brauns et al, 2013(Brauns et al, , 2020Dillmann et al, 2017;Liss et al, 2020;Schwab et al, 2022), this method was implemented here for this purpose. Several hematite artifacts from the early Iron Age were sampled as well and compared against the studied ores in a first attempt to determine whether some of these ores were exploited.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“A land whose stones are iron...”—Iron ore sources in the Southern Levant

Eliyahu-Behar,

Ben Dor,

Brauns

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Archaeol.

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Recent discoveries of iron production remains in multiple Iron Age sites throughout the Southern Levant indicate the significance of iron production in the region during this time. However, one main question remains unanswered—that is, provenance: Where were the iron resources located? Were they local or brought from afar? Answering these questions would allow great potential for reconstructing iron-ore procurement strategies and exploitation practices in the social, political, and economic context of the Southern Levant in the early 1st millennium BCE. It has long been assumed that iron ore, prevalent in the Earth's crust, is widely available. However, since high-grade ore was required for the smelting technology of the time, the bloomery process, only selected iron ore deposits in the region were suitable. This study aims to identify and characterize chemically and isotopically enriched iron-ore sources in the Southern Levant. Samples were collected from sedimentary and hydrothermal sources and analyzed for their iron content, trace elements composition, and osmium (Os) isotopic ratios. Here, we present the results of this preliminary investigation, introducing several substantial ore sources in the region and demonstrating the possibility of differentiating between these sources based on their chemical and Os isotopic composition. Finally, hematite objects from selected Iron Age archaeological sites are compared against the analyzed ore sources, showing inconsistency with the sampled ores.

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“…Although new perspectives have been opened by studies of Os isotopic ratios (e.g. Brauns et al, 2013;Brauns et al, 2020;Schwab et al, 2022; see also Schwab et al, 2006 for an attempt at using Pb isotopic ratios), this method is not widely used yet. Therefore, chemistry-based examinations are still the most common tool.…”

Section: Recent Studies Coupling Pca and Agglomerative Hierarchical C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A PCA-AHC Approach to Provenance Studies of Non-Ferrous Metals with Combined Pb Isotope and Chemistry Data

Tomczyk

Żabiński

2023

J Archaeol Method Theory

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This paper discusses the applicability of the Principal Component Analysis-Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (PCA-AHC) approach to provenance studies of non-ferrous metals using combined Pb isotope and chemistry data. Pb isotopic ratios were converted to the natural abundance of individual isotopes and then to weight units. Next, all relevant variables (Pb isotopes and trace elements) were processed with PCA and AHC to examine the relationships between observations. The method is first verified on three literature-based case studies (1, 2, and 3). It is argued that, as is the case in archaeological iron provenance studies, the PCA-AHC method is also viable for non-ferrous metals. This method can greatly facilitate research, compared to conventional biplots with ratios of Pb isotopes and trace elements. Additionally, PCA-AHC can become part of the initial deposit selection process, and it can help clarify less obvious classification cases. The main problem with a practical application of this approach is insufficient deposit datasets with complete Pb isotopic and chemistry data. In such cases, it is possible to use the PCA-AHC method separately on Pb isotopic and chemistry data and then to compare and contrast results. Alternatively, the proposed approach can be used solely with Pb isotopic data. This application is shown in two additional case studies (4 and 5), which demonstrate the method’s application for tracing artefacts to their parent ores using datasets with a few thousand observations.

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From Cyprus, or to Cyprus? A pilot study with osmium isotopy and siderophile trace elements to reconstruct the origin of corroded iron billets from the Kyrenia shipwreck

Cited by 4 publications

References 29 publications

Old wine into new wineskins? “Legacy data” in research on Roman Period East Germanic iron smelting

Old wine into new wineskins? “Legacy data” in research on Roman Period East Germanic iron smelting

“A land whose stones are iron...”—Iron ore sources in the Southern Levant

A PCA-AHC Approach to Provenance Studies of Non-Ferrous Metals with Combined Pb Isotope and Chemistry Data

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