Nuclear analytical technique for the study of ancient pottery from a Ghanaian archaeological site

Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) was utilized to determine the elemental concentrations of the archaeological pottery samples from Jenini slave camp in the Brong Ahafo Region, Ghana, employing the 30kW tank-in-pool Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC). Jenini was a slave camp of Samory Toure during the indigenous slavery and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The samples were obtained during the excavations of the tombs of the slaves who died at the camp. The accuracy of the INAA method was evaluated using IAEA Soil-7 reference material. The precision was calculated as relative standard deviation and was found to be within ±10%. Thirty-two (32) ceramic fragment samples from the archaeological site were analyzed to determine the concentration of 20 elements: Al, As, Ba, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Dy, Eu, Fe, Hf, La, Mn, Na, Sc, Sm,Th, U, and V. Two multivariate statistical methods, cluster and factor analyses, were performed on the data set in order to determine similarities and correlations between the various samples. The results of the cluster and factor analyses indicate a considerable overlap in the chemistry of the pottery shards from the three sampling points (i.e. Trench 1, Trench 2 and Pit 1) indicating that the pot shards were made from a single type of clay or clays of similar geochemical signatures. (au)