Misleading residues on lithics from Star Carr: identification with Raman microspectroscopy

TY - JOUR

T1 - Misleading residues on lithics from Star Carr

T2 - identification with Raman microspectroscopy

AU - Croft, Shannon Charmaine Klassen

AU - Chatzipanagis, Konstantinos

AU - Kröger, Roland

AU - Milner, Nicola

N1 - © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.

PY - 2018/6

Y1 - 2018/6

N2 - Ancient trace residues left on stone artefacts by people represent a source of potentially fruitful data about diet, technology, and behaviour, but their investigation is not problem-free. Rather, correct identification of degraded residues and determination of their natural or anthropogenic origin remains at the heart of current methodological development in lithic residue analysis. It is increasingly becoming clear that reflected visible light microscopy (VLM) is insufficient to make secure identifications of ambiguous residues. Confocal Raman microspectroscopy (micro-Raman) is a non-destructive technique that can identify the specific molecular nature of microscopic residues with high spatial resolution. Here, the identification of artefact residues as anthropogenic by visual inspection alone was found to be incorrect in all cases tested. Micro-Raman provided the key source of information to unambiguously determine the chemical nature of residues and hence their origin.

AB - Ancient trace residues left on stone artefacts by people represent a source of potentially fruitful data about diet, technology, and behaviour, but their investigation is not problem-free. Rather, correct identification of degraded residues and determination of their natural or anthropogenic origin remains at the heart of current methodological development in lithic residue analysis. It is increasingly becoming clear that reflected visible light microscopy (VLM) is insufficient to make secure identifications of ambiguous residues. Confocal Raman microspectroscopy (micro-Raman) is a non-destructive technique that can identify the specific molecular nature of microscopic residues with high spatial resolution. Here, the identification of artefact residues as anthropogenic by visual inspection alone was found to be incorrect in all cases tested. Micro-Raman provided the key source of information to unambiguously determine the chemical nature of residues and hence their origin.

KW - Confocal Raman microspectroscopy (micro-Raman)

KW - Gypsum

KW - Iron oxide

KW - Non-anthropogenic residues

KW - Quartz

KW - Reflected visible light microscopy (VLM)

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049442133&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.03.018

DO - 10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.03.018

M3 - Article

SN - 0305-4403

VL - 19

SP - 430

EP - 438

JO - Journal of archaeological science

JF - Journal of archaeological science

ER -