engleski

Mineralogical-petrological analysis of lithic artefacts from archaeological locality Stari Perkovci-Debela šuma (Croatia)

During archaeological excavations in 2006 on the Debela šuma locality situated on the Đakovo-Sredanci highway route, NE of Stari Perkovci village, approximately 190 lithic artefacts were found. Most of them belong to Neolithic Sopot Culture while 5 are Starčevo Culture artefacts. The aim of the present study was determination of mineralogical and petrological characteristics of stone artefacts. These characteristics are the key for determination of the geological provenance of stone artefacts which is useful for archaeological studies of cultural interactions and general directions of movements. Since pieces of stone tools are important archaeological findings, it is of utmost importance that the minimal amount of material is destroyed for the purpose of analysis. Therefore, preliminary analysis consisted of macroscopic determination of colour and texture. Unfortunately, macroscopic appearance of some completely unrelated stone tools is remarkably similar and it is only by detailed analysis that they can be distinguished. Moreover, macroscopic texture and colour can be deceiving as inner colour and texture may or may not be similar to the surface properties. Almost all of analysed stone tools have fine to very fine-grained texture which made even microscopic analysis very difficult. In order to additionally distinguish tools made from different rock materials specific gravity was measured. Based on macroscopic investigation 44 stone tools were selected as representative for non-destructive phase analysis of tools’ surface by X-Ray diffractometer equipped with multilayer parabolic mirror. Nine of those were chosen for more detailed analyses that included classic X-ray powder diffraction, polarized light microscopy and a whole rock chemical composition characterization by ICP-MS/ICP-ES methods. Determined rock types that were commonly used for stone tools were hornfels, chert, tuffite, metadiabase and amphibole-bearing schist. One stone tool finding stands out, it was determined to be nephrite. This was not in any way obvious by macroscopic appearance, primarily due to white colour, and only detailed analysis enabled determination of this rare and, in Neolithic context, very valuable material. Nephrite was valued material because of its extreme toughness and relatively low hardness. Nevertheless, their findings in European archaeological sites are relatively rare in accordance with quite rare geological occurrences of nephrite in Europe. In spite of relatively small available research database for nephrite artefacts it was possible to classify the nephrite from Debela šuma as serpentinite-related nephrite.

geoarchaeology, Debela šuma – Stari Perkovci, Neolithic, lithic artefacts, nephrite

nije evidentirano