Metal content and isotopic characterization of archaeological samples. Preliminary results

Full text: In the field of archaeometry, effecting elemental chemical analysis by determining the maximum possible number of elements present in a sample has been widely applied on the study of provenance of archaeological pottery. The inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, ICP-MS, is one of the most important spectrometric multi-elemental analytical techniques for the characterization of solid samples in materials science. The use of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to provide a highly precise and sensitive elemental and isotopic analyses has revolutionized the analytical scene in archaeometry over the past decade. This technique provides a concentration 'fingerprint' of the sample, which can be used to determine its provenance; besides, it is characterised by an accuracy of the determination as good as that obtained with neutron activation analysis (NAA), commonly used in the past for provenance study of ceramics. In the present study, chemical characterization and isotopic ratio of lead and strontium has been carried out on 15 shards of archaeological pottery from Romania, dated to the neolithic period. The use of strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) is used in archaeological research to determine migration in prehistoric populations. Mass spectrometry combined with the inductively coupled plasma technique is a convenient and suitable analytical method so that the 206Pb/207Pb ratio can be determined precisely enough to distinguish anthropogenic/lithogenic source of lead contamination. (authors)