Microfossils in Archaeological Ceramics: the utility of diatom analysis revisited for the Inka ceramics at Chaschuil region, Northwestern Argentine (Chaschuil region-Dpto. Tinogasta-Catamarca-Argentine)

18) GUILLERMO A. DE LA FUENTE, HENDRIK DEMIDDELE Y NORMA RATTO

Amsterdam

Simposio; 33rd. International Symposium on Archaeometry; 2002

Interdisciplinary research between archaeology and diatomology has been carried out only in some countries with a long academic tradition on botanic issues (i.e. some countries of Europe like The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Finland and United Kingdom), but the few work developed considering the presence of these microfossils in archaeological ceramics has been promissory to solve some specific archaeological problems.                Diatom analyses in archaeological ceramics might be an additional source of useful information to solve provenance archaeological problems when combined with other kind of information such as petrological, firing temperatures, technological, and chemically based compositional studies.  We present in this poster the preliminary results of an ongoing research dealing with the diatom analysis carried out both in ceramics (n=88) coming from three different archaeological sites at Chaschuil region and clays (n=27) collected from two different regions.  A comparison of the current diatom information with that obtained in previous research at the region will be presented and discussed, and an emphasis will be given to the discussion of the analytical techniques involved in the present research. Also, interpretative results will be compared with those coming from the applications of other analytical techniques (i.e. INAA).