Novensia: Studia i Materiały (17.2006)

Massimo Oddone
Parma

PROVENANCE STUDIES OF OBSIDIAN ARTEFACTS IN THE
NEAR EAST: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY*

Introduction

Obsidian is a volcanic glass which can be reduced to thin and sharp-edged
pieces and used to handcraft different tools such as arrow heads or cutters. It has
been largely used sińce prehistorie times and its diffusion spread over large areas
starting from the sites where obsidian flows are located. The identification of the
provenance of the prime matter of obsidian artifacts is considered significant to
gather information on the distribution of prime matter sources, on the diffusion
of iithic workshops and to track the pathways of trading in the neolithic and
eneolithic periods.
Whereas the European obsidian occurrences potential natural sources of raw
materiał are relatively few and their knowledge is ąuite satisfactory, in the Near
East obsidian bearing volcanics cover large areas and they were rather badly
known. For this reason sińce early 90’s of last century international research
projects were established aimed to contribute to:
— a better knowledge of location, Chemical properties and chronology of the
obsidians of Anatolia and of the Transcaucasian region;
— a better understanding of their circulation during prehistorie times.
This work reports the results of these studies performed with an interdisci-
plinary approach-surveying and sampling, Chemical characterization using
instrumental neutron activation analysis with data reduction and chronological
reconstruction and characterization using the fission-track dating method.
Samples from ~90 obsidian occurrences and morę than 200 archaeological
findings from several prehistorie sites were analysed for discriminating the
sources and correlating the artefacts with them.
* Italian National Research Council Institute for Energetics and Interphases, Section Pavia
University of Pavia, Department of General Chemistry, v.le Taramelli, 12, 27100 Pavia, ltaly; @-mail:
[e-mail]