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Approaches to interrogate the erased histories of recycled archaeological objects

Wood, Jonathan R; (2022) Approaches to interrogate the erased histories of recycled archaeological objects. Archaeometry , 64 (S1) pp. 187-205. 10.1111/arcm.12756. Green open access

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Abstract

Any archaeological artefact made from recyclable material may have been recycled before deposition. Three approaches are presented which have identified recycling in the archaeological record: (1) the application of log ratio analyses to investigate compositional data indicates that Roman glass was recycled and reapplied as a glaze on Parthian pottery, thereby suggesting that the paucity of Parthian and Sasanian glass in the archaeological record is due to recycling; (2) linear mixing lines on plots that combine compositional and isotopic data suggest that most silver found in the Iron Age hoards of the southern Levant was mixed, with vertical mixing lines indicating that some of it was melted down hastily in times of unrest; and (3) histograms of compositional data provide evidence of recycling accompanied by dilution of cobalt-blue glass in New Kingdom Egypt, potentially because the colourant was not available in later periods, thereby questioning the accepted provenance of the cobalt source. It is considered that application of these approaches can contribute to a better understanding of the motivations behind recycling in prehistory.

Type: Article
Title: Approaches to interrogate the erased histories of recycled archaeological objects
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/arcm.12756
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12756
Language: English
Additional information: © 2022 The Author. Archaeometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of University of Oxford. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Dilution; glass; glazed pottery; lead isotopes; log ratios; mixing; silver
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > Centre for Languages and Intl Educatn
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10142809
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