engleski

Archaeometallurgical Samples: A Top-down View

Chemometric methods for the investigation of early iron production artefacts in combination with advanced instrumental methods are presented in this work. The significant advantages of both inductively coupled plasma source with optical or mass detection (ICP-AES, ICP-MS) are due to their ability for high dimensional quantitative elemental characterization of different materials. Samples were excavated in the Turopolje region, NW Croatia, under supervision of the Municipal Museum of Zagreb, and were randomly collected according to their visual similarity prior to analysis. Various kinds of archaeological remains were analysed for an enlarged set of elements including major (Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, P, Si, Ti) and trace constituents (Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, V, Zn, Zr, and REE’s), by use of a combination of plasma spectrometric methods with XRF and SEM-EDS for surface analysis. The combination of morphological data obtained from SEM-EDS along with the elemental signature and performed statistical treatment enables identification of exceptions in the set of analysed archaeometallurgical remains. Moreover, by use of statistical analysis (PCA and HCA) on the enlarged set of measured data, the similar features of heterogeneous material become clearly discernible. Thus, different types of slags, such as bloom slag, ceramic-rich slag, and iron-rich tap slag, can successfully be perceived. The collected results are advantageous for forthcoming studies of early iron production in the Pannonian area. The combination of the presented methods facilitates recognition of various kind of inhomogeneous slag material from archaeometallurgical production sites, especially when numerous similar samples are found scattered at an excavation site.

ICP-AES, characterization, Chemical Profiling, Archaeological Samples

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