Obsidians from the Kerkennah Islands (eastern Tunisia) and the PIXE elemental compositions of the Mediterranean peralkaline obsidians

François-Xavier Le Bourdonnec (1) , Gérard Poupeau (1, 2) , Stéphan Stephan Dubernet (1) , Rida Boussofara (3) , Philippe Moretto (4) , Matthieu Compin (5) , Simone Mulazzani (6)

1 IRAMAT-CRP2A - IRAMAT-Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie
2 HNHP - Histoire naturelle de l'Homme préhistorique
3 INP-Tunisia - National Heritage Institute
4 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
5 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
6 UNIBO - Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna = University of Bologna

The provenance of 37 obsidians from the Kerkennah Islands (central Mediterranean Sea) was determined by PIXE. It is shown that they came from the two main obsidian sources, Balata dei Turchi and Lago di Venere, of the Pantelleria Island. A comparison of the PIXE elemental composition of geological vs. archaeological obsidians of central and western Mediterranean shows that their sources present elemental compositions homogeneous enough to make possible sourcing studies. However, a comparison between the distributions of geological and archaeological obsidians chemistry shows that the PIXE source qualifications do not cover yet the whole of their internal variations.

Mots clés: Provenance; PIXE; Obsidian; Kerkennah

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Physique [physics]; Chimie analytique; Géochimie

François-Xavier Le Bourdonnec, Gérard Poupeau, Stéphan Stephan Dubernet, Rida Boussofara, Philippe Moretto, et al.. Obsidians from the Kerkennah Islands (eastern Tunisia) and the PIXE elemental compositions of the Mediterranean peralkaline obsidians. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2015, 358, pp.271 - 275. ⟨10.1016/j.nimb.2014.04.028⟩. ⟨hal-01743070⟩