Achaeometrical Research in Hungary II., 1988

ANALYSES - LITHICS - Katalin T. BIRÓ: The study of polished stone implements in the Carpathian basin

sibilities of macroscopic identification are very modest, at least on the current level of knowledge, and the application of instrumental analytical techniques is only in its initial phase. 2.3.1. Methodology Provenance studies of polished artefacts are still in a primeval state. Most of the material stored in museums are described at most on an "inventory book" level. This means for most pieces a lay person's opinion. At the present level of understanding, the macroscopic determination can be misleading even with profound petrological experience, and hardly informative with respect to exact provenance. There were only a limited number of pieces investigated by microscopy or in the form of petrological thin sections. This method is suitable for a reliable determination of rock type and, in fortunate cases, can be adequately used in determining exact provenance as well. Instrumental analyses (X-ray diffraction, different chemical analyses and radiometrical dating) should be applied in cases when petrographical microscopy was not adequate for the determination of the rock or, more typically, within the petrographically separated large groups, such analyses offer further help in exact provenance studies. Such analyses, better to say, series of analyses have so far not been performed on archaeological polished stone tools in Hungary

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.The reason for this is that the limits and potentials of macro- and microscopic analyses have not yet been explored, and in this situation, analyses can be meaningless. 2.3.2. Basic research Starting from the experience with chipped stone tool raw material provenancing, it is evident that in order to achieve a really good efficiency in determining the origin of raw materials at the site, we have to make parallel studies on the archaeological material and the geological evidence. From the viewpoint of methodology, we had a similar start: first, on the basis of archaeological (macroscopic) evidence, potential samples from classical outcrops in petrographical collections were selected, that are fairly well known from both petrological and geochemical aspect. A sample collection of some 20 items was selected (Table 2). The study of the sample collection is still in progress - we are making microscopic images on surfaces prepared in different ways as well as traditional petrological thin sections. The microscopic images are produced in a digitised form in the Archaeological Instrument Centre of the HAS. In the technical preparations and the evaluation of the material we are working in collaboration with the Petrological and Geochemical Department of the Eötvös Loránd University (György Szakmány, geologist and Zsolt Schléder, university student took part in this work). Parallel to this, partly in preparation of the 3

rd Conference Excursion for the 1998 Archaeometry Symposium, we carry out a systematic survey of the most promising outcrops, partly for the purposes of sample collection, but also in hope of locating former mines and workshop settlements. Exception: X-ray diffraction of the light grey, fine grained material described already by KOTZIAN 1

963; from the site Aszód, type '56 ' was identified as containing mainly diopside andplagioclas. (measurement by L. Bognár, BÍRÓ 1991). 119