THE UTILIZATION OF TRACE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION TO CORRELATE BRITISH POST-MEDIEVAL POTTERY WITH EUROPEAN KILN SITE MATERIALS

This study uses X-ray fluorescent analysis to compare the trace chemical composition of seventeen pottery sherds excavated from sites in Britain with the trace analyses of twenty four sherds from continental sources. Results indicate that certain elements, notably zirconium, titanium, rubidium, and strontium show little variation within a particular sherd and are consistent among samples from the same source. Certain other elements appear to show wide variation which is possibly attributable to firing conditions, burial or is connected with the glaze. The comparisons of analyses indicate that nine of the seventeen British sherds can be closely correlated with particular continental sources. Tentative correlation is suggested for five sherds. The remaining three sherds clearly do not come from any of the sources investigated.     

THE USE OF TEXTURAL PARAMETERS IN THE ANALYSIS OF CAVE SEDIMENTS

This paper considers the presentation of the results of the mechanical analysis of cave sediments, suggesting that the use of grain size parameter scatter diagrams is preferable to the older method of cumulative percentage frequency graphs. A sequence of samples was taken from an ideally-situated cave, the Badger Hole at Wookey, and first subjected to the standard soil analytical tests, followed by a detailed mechanical analysis. It is hoped that this preliminary work will encourage a more quantitative approach to granulometric analysis for archaeological purposes, leading eventually to the extraction of more precise environmental data from cave sediments.     

Uttarajjhāyā studies

Ohne Zusammenfassung