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Publications (65)
In this paper we highlight the potential of compositional characterisation (NAA) of Khmer stonewares for understanding regional economic development in the Angkorian Empire (c. 9th-15th c CE). A central feature of the Angkorian economy was the precocious development of sophisticated craft industries. Of the multiple crafts produced in this empire,...
An evaluation of the geochemical characteristics of 102 storage jar sherds by k0-neutron activation analysis (k0-NAA) from archaeological contexts in Cambodia and reference samples from stoneware production centres in Thailand provides a new perspective on regional and global trade in mainland Southeast Asia. Identification of seven geochemical gro...
In mainland Southeast Asia, the so-called water frontier unified an otherwise geographically broad and culturally disparate economic network of long-, medium-, and short-distance trade of the 14th–17th century CE “Age of Commerce.” Focus on the rise of the larger port towns supporting this burgeoning maritime trade (e.g., Ayutthaya, Melaka, Hoi An)...
Evaluating temporal changes in exchange systems and social networks in pre-contact Aboriginal societies remains a major challenge for Australian archaeology. As part of a larger research program identifying exchange systems and social networks in the Sydney Basin, several excavated sites were selected to identify changes over time in the relationsh...
Gordion has long served as an archaeological type site for Iron Age central Anatolia and provided pioneering radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) determinations as reported in the first issue of Radiocarbon (1959). Absolute dating of key events at Gordion continue to reshape our understanding of regional development and interaction in the Iron Age, with a major con...
This paper presents an integrated approach to the identification of complex reprocessing operations of ancient ferrous artefacts from the multi-period site of Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Spatial and morphological studies and a range of archaeometric analyses-optical microscopy, X-Ray diffraction, Micro-Raman spectroscopy, neutron t...
The study presents a new approach for the investigation of ancient ferrous artefacts, by combining non-invasive and invasive techniques: neutron tomography, optical microscopy, and SEM-EDS, as applied to the objects from Saruq al-Hadid, U.A.E. It is revealed that despite the severe degradation of the objects, neutron tomography allows the detection...
Purpose
Copper (Cu) is the earliest anthropogenic metal pollutant, but knowledge of Cu soil concentrations at ancient metalworking sites is limited. The objective of this work was to examine the ability of portable X-ray fluorescence to quantify Cu in soils at such sites.
Materials and methods
Using a Bruker Tracer III-SD pXRF, we examine factory...
Radiocarbon dates from recent excavations of a range of Angkorian Khmer (~9th–14th CE) stoneware kiln complexes provide a new and independent perspective on the timing and geography of Khmer ceramic production. These data demonstrate a clear two-phase sequence. The first, in the late 9th to late 12th centuries CE, marks a period of intensive produc...
The provenance or origin of a soil sample is of interest in soil forensics, archaeology, and biosecurity. In all of these fields, highly specialized and often expensive analysis is usually combined with expert interpretation to estimate sample origin. In this proof of concept study we apply rapid and non-destructive spectral analysis to the questio...
Copper (Cu) at ancient metallurgy sites represents the earliest instance of anthropogenically generated metal pollution. Such sites are spread across a wide range of environments from Eurasia to South America, and provide a unique opportunity to investigate the past and present extent and impact of metalworking contamination. Establishing the conce...
Saruq al-Hadid is an archaeological site principally dated to the early Iron Age (c. 1300-800 BC), located in the desert region of Dubai, 40 km from the nearest coast and 60 km from the nearest mountains. Despite the site’s remote location from all known regional ore deposits, it features abundant metallurgical residues from copper, gold and iron-m...
Ground-edged artifacts were an important part of the Australian Aboriginal toolkit. They had practical day-to-day uses, but some had symbolic and social values that led to their movement across great distances. Australian provenance studies document long-distance Aboriginal exchange systems extending over hundreds of kilometers. The size and comple...
The Achaemenids conquered Anatolia in the sixth century bce . However, in contrast to the historical descriptions of political response to Achaemenid control, e.g. the so-called ‘Ionian revolt’ of east Greek territories in Western Anatolia, the operation of Achaemenid-period economies in this region remains obscure. Only a handful of occupation sit...
This paper explores how Iron Age Anatolian communities constructed their identities within the fluid political and economic landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean after the Late Bronze Age collapse. Our study focuses on archaeological survey ceramics from sixteen sites in the Konya-Beyşehir region (KBR), south central Anatolia, a contested zone bet...
We report analytical results for stoneware samples from four excavated Angkor-period kilns in the Greater Angkor area. Previous work has suggested that establishing distinct chemical signatures for kiln complexes in this region is problematic. The current study highlights the effectiveness of neutron activation analysis (NAA) for differentiating th...
The island of Cyprus was a major producer
of copper and stood at the heart of east
Mediterranean trade networks during the
Late Bronze Age. It may also have been the
source of the Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware
that has been found in mortuary contexts in
Egypt and the Levant, and in Hittite temple
assemblages in Anatolia. Neutron Activation
Analysis (...
Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of Protogeometric ceramics at Troy supports a revision of our understanding of the site in the Protogeometric period. Previous interpretations of this period at Troy emphasized the importance of either Greek migration or Greek trade networks. A category of amphoras previously thought to be imports appears to have b...
Existing insights into the history of southeast Asian contacts with northern Australia prior to British colonization in 1788 are limited to Macassan visitors and the trepang industry beginning in the early 18th century and perhaps 16th century. Neither historical nor archaeological evidence indicate extension of such contacts to Torres Strait of no...
Glazed ceramics are ubiquitous in the medieval archaeological record in the Mediterranean. The effects of lead volatilisation during firing of glazed ceramics on non‐destructive PXRF (portable X‐ray fluorescence) are evaluated using 25 Byzantine Cypriot glazed ceramics. Significant spectral interferences reduce the number of discriminating elements...
Current understanding of the Iron Age polity of Phrygia in Central Anatolia
is primarily based on excavations and survey in the region of the Phrygian capital of
Gordion. In order to expand our knowledge of the Phrygian polity, we assess the scale
and nature of Iron Age communities in the western (Eskişehir) region of Phrygia. We
address the challe...
Portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) spectrometry can provide rapid and nondestructive analyses of agriculturally important elements in soil. To assess the applicability of PXRF for total element analysis of Vertisols, 20 soils were collected across northern New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Comparison of PXRF results were made with conventional stan...
Archaeological use of non-destructive pXRF has been most systematically applied to the classification and provenancing of volcanic glass (obsidian) artefacts. Comparable work has yet to be developed for non-vitreous artefacts. We report results of pXRF analysis for a sample of grey to black (mafic) aboriginal hatchets from Sydney and adjacent coast...
The raw material, method of manufacture and modification of a ground-edged hatchet-head found at Vaucluse in Sydney provides evidence for the movement of stone tools from west of the Great Dividing Range to the coast. Such evidence adds new knowledge about social relationships between different groups in southeastern Australia and patterns of excha...
Non-destructive pXRF has the potential to expand sample populations of archaeological provenancing studies by facilitating access to museum collections of artefacts. In this study, we use museum-curated obsidian for the sites of Tell Brak, Mersin-Yümüktepe and Tell Arpachiyah and geological obsidian samples from central Turkey to demonstrate that n...
The k
0-method of standardisation for instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) has been used at the OPAL research reactor to determine the elemental composition of three certified reference materials: coal fly ash (SRM 1633b), brick clay (SRM 679) and Montana soil (SRM 2711). Of the 41 certified elements in the three materials, 88 percent we...
We present a multistage strategy to define the scale and geographic distribution of ‘local’ ceramic production at Lydian Sardis based on geochemical analysis (NAA) of a large diverse ceramic sample (n = 281). Within the sphere of local ceramic production, our results demonstrate an unusual pattern of reliance on a single resource relative to other...
Uncritical application of portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) to non-destructive analysis of archaeological ceramics has been received with scepticism. In this article, we present a methodological evaluation of the parameters and constraints for PXRF analysis of archaeological ceramics. We use experimental matrices that simulate characteristics of a...
This article presents data on the Iron Age of central Anatolia. After describing the geographical context of the Anatolian plateau, it outlines advances and constraints in the development of a regional chronological framework. The current understanding of the Iron Age is then explored based on recent excavations of Iron Age levels at four sites: Go...
The cultural and political changes that happened in Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite Empire have only recently been recognised as a significant, but as yet unexplained, phenomenon. Here we present the results of analyses of ceramics from three sites south and southwest of the present-day town of Sorgun – Çadır Höyük, Kerkenes Dağ and Tilk...
Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian “footprint” is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters wer...
How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC. Recent work at Boğazköy has signi...
In this study, inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry is used for elemental characterization of a large sample of stoneware jars and jar fragments from Asian and European wreck assemblages recovered from the China Sea as well as from along the long-distance trade routes of the period. The majority of these assemblages range in dat...
We use NAA to characterize a relatively large archaeological ceramic sample from the Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic phases of Kinet Höyük, a coastal Turkish site in the Gulf of Iskenderun at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. The geographic extent of local Kinet wares (how local is local?) is established through comparison with sediment...
Debates about the development of political complexity and cities are typically focused on material cultural correlates and situated within the wider context of the emergence of states. Conventionally, state emergence is linked to agricultural surpluses and a new phase of agricultural intensification. However, this approach remains fundamentally rel...
Debates about the development of political complexity and cities are typically focused on material cultural correlates and situated within the wider context of the emergence of states. Conventionally, state emergence is linked to agricultural surpluses and a new phase of agricultural intensification. However, this approach remains fundamentally rel...
Eight previously published (1) pre-Islamic coins minted in Arabia were subjected to non-destructive ion beam analysis by Proton Induced X-Ray (PIXE) and Gamma-Ray Emission (PIGME) at Lucas Heights. The results (2) were interpreted using Principal Components Analysis (PCA). The relative X-ray intensities of fifteen elements, supplemented with additi...
In this paper we compare the results of proton-induced X-ray and gamma-ray emission (PIXE/PIGE) and simultaneous inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) using a multivariate modeling approach. Paired samples from 17th century east Asian stoneware jars recovered from dated shipwrecks provide the test population. The compar...
Phrygian (or stylistically similar) ceramics are a common component of Iron Age sites in central Anatolia, but much of Phrygian culture remains obscure. In this chapter we use a combination of systematic survey and archaeological science at the ritual site of Dümrek to help us understand the extent of Early and Middle Phrygian cultural interaction...
The CD-Rom format has been around for some time now with CD-Rom readers a standard fitting on even the most basic PC. The strength of this technology is that it enables large amounts of data to be stored (650-700 MB) on a reliable, portable and economical medium. The character of data stored is virtually only dependant on developments in the hardwa...
The strengths and limitations of radiocarbon dating as applied to samples taken in and around the walled city center of Pagan, in Burma, are addressed. The last thousand years in mainland Southeast Asia remains a difficult period to date absolutely because of two critical issues. The first is the use of wood from long-lived species, such as teak, i...
Iron Age agate and carnelian beads found in Southeast Asia have long been assumed to be Indian imports, often featuring in diffusion-orientated theories of Southeast Asian state development that cite Indian influence as a major causal factor. The origin of these beads is tested here, through a pioneering non-destructive geochemical sourcing study o...
Little is known about the transition to the Modern Economy in non-European settings. Southeast Asia provides a rare opportunity to evaluate this transition through analysis of the tradeware production system that operated at the site of Sisatchanalai in central northern Thailand. Sisatchanalai is the largest and longest lived (A.C. 1100–1650) stone...
Analysis of ditch infill at an early modern burial complex (dating from the 16th century ad) in upland northwestern Thailand was undertaken to assess the role of bioturbation in interpreting palaeolandscapes. Evidence for bioturbation and water percolation is contrasted with AMS radiocarbon determinations and a phytolith sequence. While more than 5...
Results from a programme of PIXE-PIGME analysis of Iron Age ceramics from southeastern Arabia are presented. Compositional analysis indicates the existence of two discrete Iron Age II ceramic assemblages. A combination of geological and archaeological evidence suggests that one of these was produced in the inland oasis of al-Ain. Geological evidenc...
The early second millennium levels at Tell Abraq have yielded over 600 fragments of friable, red-ridged pottery with exploding lime grits which is superficially indistinguishable from contemporary, so-called ‘Barbar’pottery on Bahrain (1). The Bahraini origin of the Tell Abraq Barbar sherds has been demonstrated by means of proton-induced x-ray and...
In this paper I argue that within the range of Buddhist monuments in the uplands of north‐west Thailand, a series of abandoned chedis are valuable indicators of socio‐political interactions with lowland centres between circa AD 1200 and AD 1650. The character of upland burials reflects the level of participation with lowland groups at this time. Pr...
Recent results of 14C analyses at the ANTARES AMS Centre are presented. Test measurements of 14C blanks demonstrate an ultimate sensitivity of the order of 10-15 (14C/12C ratio). Measurements of unknowns have been made with a precision in the range 1-1.5% using a ``slow cycling'' mode of operation where the injection magnet field is changed to inje...
Projects
Projects (3)
The 9th - 15th century Angkorian state was premodern Southeast Asia's largest polity, and included the world's largest preindustrial urban complex. Understanding the political economy that structured the Khmer Empire is key to explaining its historical trajectory, and to comparing the Angkorian case study with ancient states globally. Our project uses Khmer stoneware ceramics as a proxy for tracking political economy. We seek to date and establish compositional signatures for numerous Angkorian stoneware kilns, and to track stoneware circulation patterns through the geochemistry of stonewares found at 'consumption' sites throughout the Angkorian world.
