GEOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF ISTRIAN FLINT - FIRST RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (original) (raw)

2021, 9th Scientific Methodology and Archaeometry Conference

Geochemical characterization of flint is an analysis frequently used by archaeologists in their study of flint provenance in archaeological contexts. While flint deposits from northern Croatia were analysed geochemically in the last several decades by geologists and archaeologists alike, there have not been any such analysis done on flint from the Istrian peninsula. There are several primary and secondary deposits of flint in the Istrian peninsula which were used frequently during prehistory. We decided to geochemically analyse two flints from the Neolithic site of Kargadur in southern Istria, as well as two flints from the deposits in southern Istria: one from the primary deposit on Vižula peninsula, and the other from the secondary deposit on Marlera peninsula, both within a four-kilometre distance from the Neolithic site, as the crow flies. The four flint samples were analysed using ICP-OES (Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry) and ICP-MS (Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) analysis in Bureau Veritas Commodities Canada Ltd in Vancouver, Canada, which provided us with data on major oxides, major, minor, and trace elements. Even though we realize only four samples are not enough for a detailed study on the geochemical characterization of Istrian flint deposits, we nevertheless believe our data is a good starting point for other geochemical analyses. Moreover, data from geochemical analyses on four more samples from the Vižula and Marlera deposits using pXRF are forthcoming.

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