Microfacies and Archaeology

Archaeologists are faced with the problem of the provenance of materials used in ancient buildings, sculptures or ceramics. Archaeometric methods applied to source studies include analyses of element distributions, stable isotope patterns and studies of the mineralogical and petrographical composition (Herz 1987; Riederer 1987; Herz and Waelkens 1988; Gibson and Woods 1990; Walsh 1990; Waelkens et al. 1992; Orton 1993; Rapp and Gifford 1995; Herz and Garrison 1998; Pollard 1999). ‘Geoarchaeology’ (Rapp and Gifford 1998) is an exciting and promising interdisciplinary approach.