Obsidian Studies in the Prehistoric Central Mediterranean: After 50 Years, What Have We Learned and What Still Needs to Be Done?

Abstract

Obsidian sourcing studies have been conducted in the central Mediterranean for more than 50 years. Detailed studies have been done on the geological sources on four Italian islands, and many analytical methods have been used to successfully distinguish between them. The ability to conduct analyses using those minimally (LA-ICP-MS) or totally (XRF, pXRF) non-destructive to artifacts has led to >10,000 analyses just in the last decade. Along with the ability to assign artifacts to specific geological subsources, and an increased number of studies of techno-typology, this has allowed interpretations to be made about source access and territorial control, craft specialization and the chaîne opératoire, as well as the modes, frequency, and directions of movement and how that varied spacially and temporally. Obsidian especially from Lipari and from Monte Arci in Sardinia traveled hundreds of kilometers on a regular basis starting in the Early Neolithic. By the Late Neolithic, in some areas there was selection of specific obsidian sources and subsources, and differences in production methods and tool typology. Obsidian distribution and usage in the central Mediterranean continued over four-and-one-half millennia, in many areas well into the Bronze Age. There is much more still to do integrating these different studies, especially use-wear studies, along with those of lithic and other materials that also played a role in prehistoric transport and trade systems.

Petroarcheometric Analysis on Obsidian Artefacts Found Within Some Neolithic – Eneolithic Period Caves of Southern Italy

“…SEM-EDS and WD-XRF absolutely non-destructive analyses carried out on these items showed as all samples are referable to the obsidian outcrops of the Lipari Aeolian Island (Messina, Italy). These data confirm that in peninsular Southern Italy the most widespread obsidian is the one traded from Lipari (Acquafredda, Larocca, Muntoni, & Pallara, 2016;Acquafredda, Muntoni, & Pallara, 2017;Tykot, 2017;Freund, 2018).…”

“…Among the pioneering research, Wainwright in 1927 proposed the determination of refraction index and density of obsidian artefacts for their archaeometric characterization; successively other techniques were used, for provenance determination of obsidian artefacts, like optical emission spectroscopy (Cann & Renfrew, 1964); instrumental neutron activation analysis (Gordus, Wright, & Griffin, 1968); fission track dating (Bigazzi, Bonadonna, Belluomini, & Malpieri, 1971); energy and wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence using peak intensity ratios of various elements (Nelson, D'Auria, & Bennett, 1975;De Francesco, Crisci, & Bocci, 2008, respectively); particle induced X-ray emission (Nielson, Hill, Mangelson, & Nelson, 1976); electron microprobe (Merrik & Brown, 1984 ); inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), with or without laser ablation (Tykot &Young, 1996 andGratuze, 1999, respectively); gamma rays (Shackley, 1998); scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectrometer (Acquafredda, Andriani, Lorenzoni, & Zanettin, 1999); electron spin resonance (Duttine, Villeneuve, Poupeau, Rossi, & Scorzelli, 2003); Mössbauer spectroscopy (Stewart et al, 2003); Raman micro-spectroscopy (Bellot-Gurlet, Le Bourdonnec, Popeau, & Dubernet, 2004); portable or handheld portable energy dispersive spectrometers (Phillips & Speakman, 2009;Frahm, Doonan, & Kilikoglou, 2014 respectively) and recently laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (Syvilay, Bousquet, Chapoulie, Orange, & Le Bourdonnec, 2019).…”

From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Central Italy: Settlement, Burial, and Social Change at the Dawn of Metal Production

“…Long-standing archaeological interest in this material is motivated by its traceability to four central Mediterranean island sources: Monte Arci in Sardinia, Lipari in the Aeolian archipelago, Palmarola off the coast of Latium, and remote Pantelleria in the Strait of Sicily. Chemical fingerprinting of obsidian from these sources (and from individual quarries at Lipari and Monte Arci) has enabled detailed reconstructions of the circulation patterns of this sought-after material (Ammerman 1985;Pessina and Radi 2005;Tykot 1998Tykot , 2017Tykot and Ammerman 1997).…”

The Emergence of Copper-Based Metallurgy in the Maltese Archipelago: an archaeometric perspective

“…In the light of such new data, Maltese metallurgy appears to be firmly part of the cultural region that includes at least Sicily and Calabria. The material culture in these regions is often comparable during the prehistoric period, suggesting that there were intense exchanges across the region, as demonstrated by the distribution of obsidian from Pantelleria and Lipari in Sicily and Malta (Tykot 2015(Tykot , 2017(Tykot , 2019. Given the geographic location of Malta, a group of small islands south of Sicily, and evidence across its material culture, it appears that all early metals could only have come via Sicily (and probably originating from there), while from the later Middle Bronze Age onward also from the Aegean.…”