Provenance of the Jerf el Ahmar (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria) obsidians

What is it about?

A provenance study of obsidians collected in the Jerf el Ahmar village dated from 9500 to 8700 BC cal (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria) was made from geochemical analyses. The elementary composition of 44 obsidian artefacts and of 19 samples from potential obsidian volcanic sources was determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry and -mass spectrometry (ICP-AES/-MS) or particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersion of X-rays (SEM-EDX). We show that each of these approaches gives reliable source assignment. We found that 42 of the Jerf el Ahmar obsidians came from the Cappadocia (Göllü Dağ volcanic massif) and two from the Bingöl area in Eastern Anatolia. This information confirms the arrival in the Levant of obsidian from the latter sources during the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, most probably in relation with the diffusion of the Neolithic process from the Middle Euphrates Valley towards the Northeast.

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