A multi-technique analytical approach to sourcing Scandinavian flint: Provenance of ballast flint from the shipwreck "Leirvigen 1", Norway.

ABSTRACT: Although Scandinavian flint is one of the most important materials used for prehistoric stone tool production in Northern and Central Europe, a conclusive method for securely differentiating between flint sources, geologically bound to northern European chalk formations, has never been achieved. The main problems with traditional approaches concern the oftentimes high similarities of SiO2 raw materials (i.e. chert and flint) on different scales due to similar genetic conditions and higher intra- than inter-source variation. Conventional chert and flint provenance studies chiefly concentrate on visual, petrographic or geochemical investigations. Hence, attempts to generate characteristic fingerprints of particular chert raw materials were in most cases unsatisfying. Here we show that the Mu

SUBMITTER: Brandl M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6082525 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature