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This study presents the results of integrated mineralogical, petrographic and chemical analyses of different ceramic assemblages and local sediments from Sai Island, northern Sudan, dating to between the seventh and the third millennium bc, and highlights a significant variability in the raw materials and technology of these productions. Although archaeometric analyses of ceramics are widely employed in many parts of the world, a lamentable scientific gap exists for African pottery, which this paper aims to bridge with new and compelling results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obsidian archaeological artifacts from the Holocene occupation sequences at the contemporary sites of Mochena Borago and Yabello, southern Ethiopia, have been characterized using electron microprobe analysis. Results show the artifacts of each site were partially procured from two separate but known sources, Bantu and Chebe. The inhabitants of both sites also seem to have used obsidian from another, as yet unknown, source. This is interesting as the inhabitants of each site pursued different life ways: one entirely dependent on wild animals and the other incorporating domestic fauna. In spite of the analysis of many geological sources in the Ethiopian Rift System, the unknown sources cannot yet be determined. Despite erupting from several vents, one of the sources, Chebe, has uniform elemental chemistry, representing an exception to the widely held assumption that every eruptive sequence has unique chemistry, the archaeological significance of which should be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking the stone raw material of a lithic artifact to its original outcrop is an important endeavor that facilitates archaeologists' understanding of prehistoric mobility, trade, economics, and land use. Based on macroscopic identification, archaeologists' presume that prehistoric Holocene occupants of the Welling Site, Ohio, made use of the locally available Upper Mercer chert for the majority of their projectile points. Here we apply visible derivative spectroscopy (VDS) to quantitatively assess this claim by examining 55 projectile points from the site. VDS identified 85%, whereas macroscopic analysis found 73% of the projectile points examined derived from the Upper Mercer Chert. These proportions are not statistically different given the sample size. Although the VDS analysis supported the hypothesis that Welling's Holocene projectile points were predominately produced from Upper Mercer chert, discrepancies between the results of macroscopic versus VDS chert identification point to future avenues of research including an expansion of VDS analyzed hand samples and comparison of VDS to other sourcing methods. Nevertheless, we propose that VDS has much promise and should be researched further so that archaeologists' can add another tool to their lithic artifact raw material sourcing toolbox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]