Non-destructive fabric analysis of prehistoric pottery using high-resolution X-ray microtomography: a pilot study on the late Mesolithic to Neolithic site HamburgBoberg

摘要

The characterisation of prehistoric pottery fragments presents a quite complex task. In provenance studies, petrographic and chemical analyses of the ceramic materials are employed to investigate potential production areas in respect to the geolocial background. Moreover, also the production technology of the firing process, as well as the forming techniques used by the prehistoric potters are of great interest. Their investigation is most often accompanied by a destructive preparation of the samples. In this paper, we want to present high-resolution X-ray microtomography (μ-CT), a non-destructive and non-invasive method, as a supplementary research tool in the study of prehistoric pottery. Ceramic fragments from the Endmesolithic-Neolithic site Hamburg-Boberg 15 (northern Germany) were analysed by X-ray microtomography. inspection combines quantification and shape analysis of fabric components by means of computer aided image processing. As the μ-CT method is sensitive to material densities, qualitative and quantitative analyses of different temper materials are possible. Furthermore, the μ-CT method permits the characterisation of the connectivity within the porous system, as well as the analysis of the orientation of the pore structures, which are indicative for vessel forming techniques. Although limited by the resolution of the reconstructed images, distribution analysis of heavy minerals in the clay matrix can offer distinctive features to discriminate various clay sources. Moreover, X-ray microtomography can be used to infer the nature of organic temper even with all plant remains completely burnt out during the firing process. The visualisation of the high-resolution true volume renderings and their detailed morphometric characterisation enables new avenues in the study of ceramic technology.