The Identification of Sources of Chert Artifacts

Abstract

Trace element analysis is a widely used procedure for determining the original source of archaeological materials. Although many articles have discussed analytical procedures and archaeological applications of the results, comparatively little attention has been given to the intermediate step of determining the appropriate procedure for assigning an artifact to a source once the trace element composition of both is known. This paper discusses several different procedures for assigning artifacts to sources and compares these procedures on the basis of their accuracy and the types of identification errors they make. Special attention is paid to discriminant analysis, which appears to be the best procedure for identifying sources of chert artifacts.