Imaging skeletal remains with ground-penetrating radar: comparative results over two graves from Viking Age and Medieval churchyards on the Stóra-Seyla farm,northern Iceland

Detailed ground-penetrating radar surveys were conducted at separate Viking Age and Medieval churchyards on the Stóra-Seyla farm in Skagafjörður, northern Iceland. Surveying over a previously unknown site (ca. AD 1000) that is located just a few meters above the Skagafjörður valley bottom delineated the remnants of a buried circular turf wall that encloses a church structure and several graves. The radar profiles over the graves contain strong hyperbolic reflections that emanated from the skeletal remains. Over one of the graves, an air-filled void within the chest cavity had been detected as noted by reflections with normal polarity which indicated a boundary towards increasing microwave velocity. During excavation, the soil surrounding an intact rib cage collapsed thus confirming the presence of the void. In general, the skeletal remains were very well preserved and yielded strong reflections which permitted the orientation of the body to be determined. Conversely, the radar profiles over a grave from a more recent churchyard (ca. AD 1200) show ground disturbance but lack hyperbolic reflections. Upon excavation, only teeth were recovered. The poor preservation of the skeletal remains is attributed to increase contact with infiltrating groundwater from an overlying gravel layer. Interpretations were aided by time-slice overlay imaging, forward modeling and analysis of the reflection coefficient.     

Integrated geoarchaeological methods for the determination of site activity areas: a study of a Viking Age house in Reykjavik,Iceland

For over a decade, geoarchaeological methods such as multi-element analysis and soil micromorphology have been used to identify and interpret activity areas on archaeological sites. However, these techniques, along with others such as magnetic susceptibility, loss on ignition, and microrefuse, artefact and bone distribution analyses are rarely integrated in the study of a single site, even though they provide very different and potentially complementary data. This paper presents a comparative study of a wide range of geoarchaeological methods that were applied to the floors sediments of a Viking Age house at the site of Aðalstræti 16, in central Reykjavík, Iceland, along with more traditional artefact and bone distribution analyses, and a spatial study of floor layer boundaries and features in the building. In this study, the spatial distributions of artefacts and bones could only be understood in the light of the pH distributions, and on their own they provided limited insight into the use of space in the building. Each of the sediment analyses provided unique and valuable information about possible activity areas, with soil micromorphology proving to have the greatest interpretive power on its own. However, the interpretation potential of the geochemical methods was dramatically enhanced if they were integrated into a multi-method dataset.     

Marine resource intensification in Viking Age Europe: the molluscan evidence from Quoygrew,Orkney

This paper addresses whether molluscan evidence from Orkney can shed light on the hypothesis that there was a trend towards the intensification of marine resource use at the end of the first millennium AD. The stratified middens of Quoygrew, which date from approximately the 10th to the 13th centuries, are shown to contain predominantly limpets, which may have been used for baiting fish. From metrical data it is shown that these limpets reduce in size through time. In order to test whether this observation is related to intensification in exploitation, analysis of limpet shoreline location was carried out. In addition, age data were used to demonstrate a lowering of average age which suggests intensification in gathering rather than environmental influences, particularly during the 11th–12th centuries at this site.     

Another (mud)brick in the wall: scientific analysis of Bronze Age earthen construction materials from East Crete

Mudbricks appear to have been one of the most common building materials used in domestic architecture in Bronze Age Crete. Well-preserved earthen construction materials from the sites of Vasiliki, Makrygialos and Mochlos in East Crete have been examined with regard to their macromorphological characteristics and their mineralogical and chemical composition in order to investigate the nature of the raw materials used, the technology of manufacture and the potential use of specific recipes. The methods applied include a combination of mineralogical and chemical analytical techniques, namely petrography, neutron activation (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Finally, a range of raw materials from the immediate vicinity of each site were sampled and analyzed in order to compare with the archaeological data and identify potential sources. The analyses suggested that there is a degree of standardization in the recipes and the manufacturing process and that the selection of the raw materials depends on availability.     

Evidence for volcanic ash fall in the Maya Lowlands from a reservoir at Tikal,Guatemala

Powder X-ray diffraction and petrographic analyses of reservoir sediments from Tikal, Guatemala have identified significant quantities of decomposed volcanic ash in the form of smectite and euhedral bipyramidal quartz crystals. X-ray fluorescence trace element content analysis was used to eliminate distant Sahara-Sahel and Antilles sources. The Zr/Y and Ni/Cr ratios of reservoir sediment from Tikal are consistent with a source from Central American volcanism (e.g., Guatemalan and Salvadoran). AMS radiocarbon dating of the smectite and crystalline quartz-rich reservoir sediments show that volcanic ash fell during the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic Maya cultural periods. It may now be possible to develop an effective chronology of ash fall at Tikal and the greater Peten.     

Preliminary neutron diffraction study of two fenestrated axes from the ‘Enot Shuni' Bronze Age cemetery (Israel)

Neutron diffraction (ND) analyses of ancient metals show that this method is capable of detecting differences in the inner composition and microstructure of ancient metal objects. Here, ND measurements were conducted on two ‘eye shaped’ axes from the end of the 3rd-beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The objects were excavated from the ancient cemetery of ‘Enot Shuni' Israel; one is made of bronze and the other of silver. Both artefacts are rare finds, with the silver axe unique in the archaeology of Israel, and therefore had to be analysed locally. For that purpose, a newly assembled diffractometer (KARL) at the IRR-1 of the Nuclear Research Centre (Soreq, Israel) was used. ND measurement on the bronze axe revealed the existence of an α-phase with a range of Cu/Sn ratios (Cu–Sn solid solutions) and some amount of a δ-phase (intermetallic compound of Cu and Sn). The silver axe ND pattern shows the existence of an α-phase (Ag–Cu solid solution) and some amount of copper metal. Our ND data are discussed in comparison with XRF surface measurements and thermal neutron radiography. The results are shedding more light on the in-depth material composition profile, as well as on the objects’ structural and compositional affinities, and help to better understand the production processes and assist in conservation decisions.     

Synchrotron radiation-based x-ray analysis of bronze artifacts from an Iron Age site in the Judean Hills

Seven bronze bangles from Tell en-Nasbeh, northern Judah, were investigated to understand the phase composition and manufacturing process of the artifacts, and possibly suggest a provenance for their origin. Synchrotron x-ray radiation diffraction (XRD) and fluorescence (XRF) were used in the analysis to avoid any destructive sampling and at the same time penetrate through the surface into the core metal. These techniques enabled us to determine that the bangles were not just tin bronze, but leaded tin bronze. Based on excavation reports, it is unlikely that the metal objects were manufactured locally at Tell en-Nasbeh; rather, preliminary XRD and XRF data point towards the neighboring region of Edom as their origin. Despite their political enmity during the Iron Age II, the data suggest that Judahite social demands for bronze may have fostered a strong economic relationship between these two polities.     

Technological examination of Neolithic-Bronze Age pottery from central and southeast Europe and from the Near East

Scanning electron microscopy is used to examine sequences of pottery sherds from central and southeast Europe, Greece and the Near East spanning the period from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, in order to obtain information on the ceramic technologies employed in antiquity. On the basis of the vitrification observed and the chemical composition, the types of clay and firing procedures (temperature and atmosphere) employed in the manufacture of the pottery are defined. Two under-lying trends in the associated ceramic technologies are thus identified. The first is based on the use of non-calcareous or “unstable” calcareous clays fired in a reducing atmosphere at temperatures below 800 °C and the second on the use of “stable” calcareous clays fired in an oxidizing atmosphere at temperatures in excess of 800 °C.