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Article

New Strategies in Archaeometric Provenance Analyses of Volcanic Rock Grinding Stones: Examples from Iulia Libica (Spain) and Sidi Zahruni (Tunisia)

by
Lluís Casas
1,*,
Roberta Di Febo
1,
Anna Anglisano
2,
África Pitarch Martí
3,
Ignasi Queralt
4,
Cèsar Carreras
5 and
Boutheina Fouzai
6
1
Departament de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Edifici C, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
2
Departament de Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Girona (UdG), c/ Maria Aurèlia Capmany i Farnés, 69, 17003 Girona, Spain
3
Departament d’Arts i Conservació-Restauració, Facultat de Belles Arts, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), c/Pau Gargallo, 4, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
4
Department of Geosciences, IDAEA-CSIC, Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
5
Departament de Ciències de l’Antiguitat i de l’Edat Mitjana, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
6
Département Génie Chimique Industriel et Minier, École Nationale D’ingénieurs de Gafsa (ENIGA), Campus Universitaire Sidi Ahmed Zarroug, Gafsa 2112, Tunisia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Submission received: 12 May 2024 / Revised: 19 June 2024 / Accepted: 20 June 2024 / Published: 23 June 2024

Abstract

Archaeometry can help archaeologists in many ways, and one of the most common archaeometric objectives is provenance analysis. Volcanic rocks are often found in archaeological sites as materials used to make grinding tools such as millstones and mortars or as building materials. Petrographic characterization is commonly applied to identify their main mineralogical components. However, the provenance study of volcanic stones is usually undertaken by comparing geochemical data from reference outcrops using common descriptive statistical tools such as biplots of chemical elements, and occasionally, unsupervised multivariate data analysis like principal component analysis (PCA) is also used. Recently, the use of supervised classification methods has shown a superior performance in assigning provenance to archaeological samples. However, these methods require the use of reference databases for all the possible provenance classes in order to train the classification models. The existence of comprehensive collections of published geochemical analyses of igneous rocks enables the use of the supervised approach for the provenance determination of volcanic stones. In this paper, the provenance of volcanic grinding tools from two archaeological sites (Iulia Libica, Spain, and Sidi Zahruni, Tunisia) is attempted using data from the GEOROC database through unsupervised and supervised approaches. The materials from Sidi Zahruni have been identified as basalts from Pantelleria (Italy), and the agreement between the different supervised classification models tested is particularly conclusive. In contrast, the provenance of the materials from Iulia Libica remained undetermined. The results illustrate the advantages and limitations of all the examined methods.
Keywords: archaeometry; volcanic stone; grinding tools; provenance studies; supervised methods; machine learning; clustering; XRF archaeometry; volcanic stone; grinding tools; provenance studies; supervised methods; machine learning; clustering; XRF

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MDPI and ACS Style

Casas, L.; Di Febo, R.; Anglisano, A.; Pitarch Martí, Á.; Queralt, I.; Carreras, C.; Fouzai, B. New Strategies in Archaeometric Provenance Analyses of Volcanic Rock Grinding Stones: Examples from Iulia Libica (Spain) and Sidi Zahruni (Tunisia). Minerals 2024, 14, 639. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/min14070639

AMA Style

Casas L, Di Febo R, Anglisano A, Pitarch Martí Á, Queralt I, Carreras C, Fouzai B. New Strategies in Archaeometric Provenance Analyses of Volcanic Rock Grinding Stones: Examples from Iulia Libica (Spain) and Sidi Zahruni (Tunisia). Minerals. 2024; 14(7):639. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/min14070639

Chicago/Turabian Style

Casas, Lluís, Roberta Di Febo, Anna Anglisano, África Pitarch Martí, Ignasi Queralt, Cèsar Carreras, and Boutheina Fouzai. 2024. "New Strategies in Archaeometric Provenance Analyses of Volcanic Rock Grinding Stones: Examples from Iulia Libica (Spain) and Sidi Zahruni (Tunisia)" Minerals 14, no. 7: 639. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/min14070639

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