Pofatu, a curated and open-access database for geochemical sourcing of archaeological materials

Hermann, Aymeric; Forkel, Robert; McAlister, Andrew; Cruickshank, A. A.; Golitko, Mark; Kneebone, Brendan; McCoy, Mark D.; Reepmeyer, Christian; Sheppard, Peter; Sinton, John M.; Weisler, Marshall I.

doi:10.1038/s41597-020-0485-8

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 82 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The APU water sampling map can be viewed at: https://arcg.is/1bj4CT; prospective users can be added to the web map by emailing Scaffidi. Collaborative databases like those developed in other world regions (Salesse et al, 2018;Willmes et al, 2018;Hermann et al, 2020) are absolutely critical for fully characterizing isotopic variability in this difficult-totraverse region.…”

Section: Sample Collection and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr Mixing Model Development mentioning

confidence: 99%

Drinking Locally: A Water 87Sr/86Sr Isoscape for Geolocation of Archeological Samples in the Peruvian Andes

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The analysis of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr has become a robust tool for identifying non-local individuals at archeological sites. The 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in human bioapatite reflects the geological signature of food and water consumed during tissue development. Modeling relationships between 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in human environments, food webs, and archeological human tissues is critical for moving from identifying non-locals to determining their likely provenience. In the Andes, obstacles to sample geolocation include overlapping 87 Sr/ 86 Sr of distant geographies and a poor understanding of mixed strontium sources in food and drink. Here, water is investigated as a proxy for bioavailable strontium in archeological human skeletal and dental tissues. This study develops a water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isoscape from 262 samples (220 new and 42 published samples), testing the model with published archeological human skeletal 87 Sr/ 86 Sr trimmed of probable non-locals. Water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and prediction error between the predicted and measured 87 Sr/ 86 Sr for the archeological test set are compared by elevation, underlying geology, and watershed size. Across the Peruvian Andes, water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ranges from 0.7049 to 0.7227 (M = 0.7081, SD = 0.0027). Water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr is higher in the highlands, in areas overlying older bedrock, and in larger watersheds, characteristics which are geographically correlated. Spatial outliers identified are from canals, wells, and one stream, suggesting those sources could show non-representative 87 Sr/ 86 Sr. The best-fit water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isoscape achieves prediction errors for archeological samples ranging from 0.0017-0.0031 (M = 0.0012, n = 493). The water isoscape explains only 7.0% of the variation in archeological skeletal 87 Sr/ 86 Sr (R 2 = 0.07), but 90.0% of archeological skeleton 87 Sr/ 86 Sr fall within the site isoscape prediction ± site prediction standard error. Due to lower sampling density and higher geological variability in the highlands, the water 87 Sr/ 86 Sr isoscape is more useful for ruling out geographic origins for lowland

show abstract

Section: Sample Collection and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr Mixing Model Development mentioning

confidence: 99%

Drinking Locally: A Water 87Sr/86Sr Isoscape for Geolocation of Archeological Samples in the Peruvian Andes

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…pXRF Methods Metadata; S2. Geochemistry of Obsidian and Volcanic Glass Artifacts) and available through the Pofatu database (Hermann et al, 2020) hosted at the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Obsidian and volcanic glass artifact evidence for long-distance voyaging to the Polynesian Outlier island of Tikopia

McCoy

Cervera

Mulrooney³

et al. 2020

Quat. res.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reconstructing routes of ancient long-distance voyaging, long a topic of speculation, has become possible thanks to advances in the geochemical sourcing of archaeological artifacts. Of particular interest are islands classified as Polynesian Outliers, where people speak Polynesian languages and have distinctly Polynesian cultural traits, but are located within the Melanesian or Micronesian cultural areas. While the classification of these groups as Polynesian is not in dispute, the material evidence for the movement between Polynesia and the Polynesian Outliers is exceedingly rare, unconfirmed, and in most cases, nonexistent. We report on the first comprehensive sourcing (using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer) of obsidian and volcanic glass artifacts recovered from excavations on the Polynesian Outlier island of Tikopia. We find evidence for: (1) initial settlement followed by continued voyages between Tikopia and an island Melanesian homeland; (2) long-distance voyaging becoming much less frequent and continuing to decline; and (3) later voyaging from Polynesia marked by imports of volcanic glass from Tonga beginning at 765 cal yr BP (±54 yr). Later long-distance voyages from Polynesia were surprisingly rare, given the strong cultural and linguistic influences of Polynesia, and we suggest, may indicate that Tikopia was targeted by Tongans for political expansion.

show abstract

“…Major elements were measured by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), trace element by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and isotopic ratios by multiple-collector ICP-MS (MC-ICP-MS) (text S2 and tables S2 to S4). The geochemical composition of each artifact was compared with data reported for geological samples from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands in the GEOROC and the Pofatu databases (texts S3 and S4) (38)(39)(40)(41).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For that purpose, we used data on archeological quarries and on unexploited natural outcrops to consider all potential sources of volcanic rocks in islands in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Reference material and source data (39) and in a GitHub repository: https://github.com/pofatu/pofatu-data. The GEOROC data, which are publicly available as csv-formatted files from the GEOROC website (https://georoc.eu/), were also loaded into the SQLite database for scalable and performant analysis, which was made available in the following GitHub repository: https://github.…”

Section: Source Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Artifact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the peopling of Remote Oceania is well-documented as a general process of eastward migrations from Island Southeast Asia and Near Oceania toward the archipelagos of Remote Oceania, the origin and the development of Polynesian societies in the Western Pacific (Polynesian Outliers), far away from the Polynesian triangle, remain unclear. Here, we present a large-scale geochemical sourcing study of stone artifacts excavated from archeological sites in central Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the Caroline Islands and provide unambiguous evidence of multiple long-distance voyages, with exotic stone materials being transported up to 2500 kilometers from their source. Our results emphasize high mobility in the Western Pacific during the last millennium CE and offer insights on the scale and timing of contacts between the Polynesian Outliers, their neighbors in the Western Pacific, and societies of Western Polynesia.

show abstract

Pofatu, a curated and open-access database for geochemical sourcing of archaeological materials

Cited by 6 publications

References 82 publications

Drinking Locally: A Water 87Sr/86Sr Isoscape for Geolocation of Archeological Samples in the Peruvian Andes

Drinking Locally: A Water 87Sr/86Sr Isoscape for Geolocation of Archeological Samples in the Peruvian Andes

Obsidian and volcanic glass artifact evidence for long-distance voyaging to the Polynesian Outlier island of Tikopia

Artifact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About