THE USE OF ICP-MS IN PROVENANCING IGNEOUS STONE ARTEFACTS: EXAMPLES FROM THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

摘要

Throughout the southern Levant (Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Territories) mafic rocks were used in the manufacture of a wide variety of artefacts, including statues and bowls as well as more utilitarian artefacts such as grinders. Whereas igneous rocks are only located in certain parts of the southern Levant (Figure 1, below), these artefacts are found on virtually every studied site in the region. Clearly, these artefacts must have been transported up to several hundred kilometres from their source outcrop. This is of great archaeological interest due to the potential constraints offered to questions relating to inter-group contacts and how past societies operated and were organised. Artefacts were examined from the range of periods shown in Table 1. A large variety of goods were acquired over long distances, but are generally not amenable to provenancing. Textiles, spices and oils were widely distributed, but have usually perished. There have been a number of attempts to provenance metals, but these have met with problems due to the potential for the mixing of sources. Artefacts made from rock have a far greater potential for elucidating long distance trade networks, as they are relatively common, virtually indestructible, and do not generally undergo chemical or physical changes during their manufacture, use or subsequent deposition. Given these advantages, there have been a number of attempts to provenance the mafic artefacts of the southern Levant. All provenance studies rely on matching unique features of the composition of the artefact with the unique features of a single potential source outcrop. The provenance studies reviewed below attempted to use a variety of supposedly unique features of the artefacts to determine their source, with varying degrees of success.