Raman micro-spectroscopy of western Mediterranean obsidian glass: one step towards provenance studies?

What is it about?

This paper presents the first results of the Raman characterization of obsidians from the western Mediterranean. About 40 geological samples, from the islands of Lipari, Palmarola, Pantelleria and Sardinia, representative of the seven archaeologically significant obsidian sources, were analysed. Apart from the general shape of the spectra, which characterize three islands, a detailed treatment of the stretching massif part was performed to obtain quantitative discriminating parameters. The combination of these factors seems to provide a complete discrimination of all archaeologically significant western Mediterranean sources. These sources have provided raw material of Meso- and Neolithic artefacts distributed around the Tyrrhenian basin and nowadays provide key evidence of ancient exchange networks. Because some alternatives to classical geochemical fingerprinting are currently being sought, Raman spectroscopy could be a complementary or even alternative technique in provenance studies of archaeological obsidians.

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