Material sciences applied to West Hallstatt Gold
Résumé
This paper introduces the analytical tool kit that was applied for studying the Early Iron Age gold objects from eastern France and southwest Germany. In two laboratories in France (IRAMAT-CEB) and Germany (CEZA) a joint analytical program was applied that comprised three analytical methods: X-Ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX). The aim was to create comparable sets of data on each side in order to establish a common base for cross-border data interpretation. Thus, the particular challenge of this work was (a) to find a consensus about the methodological approach, i.e. which analyses ought to be applied for which purpose, and (b) to produce comparable results within the two laboratories. Some important features about this work are presented here. This includes a brief introduction of each method and their specifications within each laboratory and a demonstration of the comparability of the yielded results; and a discussion about their validity.