A METHOD FOR GROUPING POTTERY BY CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

A new similarity measure is proposed, the ‘dilution factor spread’ or, derived from it, a ‘goodness of fit’ parameter. This has the advantage that raw data without any transformation can be used, diluted samples are recognized and errors of individual concentration values can easily be included. The use of this similarity coefficient in multivariate cluster analyses to construct dendrograms is shown and compared with the use of the well-known similarity measure of Euclidian distance in attribute space and of the cos θ measure.     

SOURCES OF THE QUARTZITE OF SOME ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCULPTURES

This article reports the results of analysis of samples collected from some Egyptian quartzite artifacts. such as statuary, dating from the New Kingdom. Most of the artifacts are located in Upper Egypt, but the results of analysis suggest that, until the middle of the fourteenth century B.C., the quartzite came from a more distant quarry near Cairo rather than from the quartzite quarries located near Aswan in Upper Egypt.     

ION BEAM ANALYSIS OF COPPER AND COPPER ALLOY COINS

In recent years ion beam techniques have become more and more important since in most cases the analysis of copper and copper alloy coins has to be non-destructive. It is therefore of interest to study the relative advantages of several nuclear methods for a certain type of metal. The results are presented here of a comparison between three non-destructive ion beam techniques: particle induced X-ray emission, proton activation analysis and fast neutron activation analysis.     

RESEARCH NOTES AND APPLICATION REPORTS ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION MAPS IN FOSSIL BONES

The combined application of fission track analysis and neutron activation-induced β-autoradiography to map the trace element distributions of scandium, cobalt, uranium and rare earth elements in fossil bone samples from East Africa is described. Both uranium and the rare earth elements are incorporated into bone apatite during fossilisation, whereas scandium and cobalt occur additionally in any iron-manganese minerals precipitated in pore spaces within the bone cortex. The distribution of uranium is different from that of the rare earth elements in the fossil bone cortices; it enters fossil bone more rapidly and is sensitive to changes in the redox potential of the palaeogroundwater.     

ASSESSMENT OF IN-SITE VARIABILITY OF POTTERY FROM SESKLO,THESSALY

Results of X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, thin section analysis and scanning electron microscopy applied to the neolithic pottery of Sesklo indicated the existence of quality variation in pottery, which seems to be the result of using different raw materials and different technological procedures. This differentiation has been observed temporally and spatially in the two excavated areas of the site. Application of physicochemical techniques to technological studies of ancient pottery gives for the first time evidence, with potentially important applications, of the social and economic structure of neolithic Greece.     

THE OUTPUT EFFECTS OF SPATIAL PRICE DISCRIMINATION REVISITED*

ABSTRACT Some prior findings on spatial price discrimination are extended. Under certain spatially defined market conditions, discriminatory pricing is known to yield greater output than does nondiscriminatory f.o.b. mill pricing. However, this seemingly surprising result is based on the form of the basic demand function which is relatively less convex than a certain standard curve. The present paper makes this prior result more general by permitting the assumed basic demand to be relatively more convex.