EMF - Abstracts

The Sourcing of Chert in Northern England.

Yvonne Wolframm (Bradford University)

This research project aims to investigate hunter-gatherer mobility in northern England during the Mesolithic through the sourcing of cherts and their distribution in the landscape. This will be achieved in three stages: 1) development of a geochemical approach to sourcing geological cherts; 2) confirmation of its applicability to archaeological specimens; and 3) examination of raw material across a variety of sites to test two models regarding hunter-gatherer movement within the upland landscape.

Currently the first stage is under investigation. For the northern and southern Pennines geological sources have been sampled for analysis by ICP-AES, LA-ICP-MS and recently ICP-MS. The aim is to identify fingerprints by which artefact can be assigned to geological sources through the major, trace and rare earth elements. Preliminary results indicate that this can be done.