Braden Cordivari

31 August 2026

Our latest Paper Spotlight is a new Archaeometry paper from member Kyle Freund (Idaho National Laboratory), "Assessing the Impact of Firing on the Elemental Composition of Clays Using X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry."

Highlights:

1. Raw clays from eastern Idaho were analyzed with energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF) both before and after firing to test whether there were significant differences in the elemental composition of these materials.
2. The firing of raw clays resulted in a significant loss of mass regardless of firing temperature as well as a statistically significant increase in the measured abundance of each of the 13 elements considered in this study
3. Using XRF, provenance assignments of ceramic artifacts to clay sources or alluvial systems can change based on the firing temperature of the comparative clay reference material.

The use of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) spectrometry for analyzing ceramic artifacts typically centers on identifying geochemical groups within an assemblage and/or matching artifacts to specific clay sources or alluvial systems. For those focused on provenance, there are unresolved methodological issues concerning the effects of firing on the composition of raw clays. For this study, raw clays from eastern Idaho were analyzed with XRF both before and after firing to test whether there were significant differences in the elemental composition of these materials. The results have implications for future provenance studies that compare ceramic artifacts to raw or fired clays.

Freund, K.P., Pink, J.M., Clements, J.G., Cathers, C.M., Woodbury, H.K., Alexander, C., 2026. Assessing the Impact of Firing on the Elemental Composition of Clays Using X‐Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry. Archaeometry. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.70171

Braden Cordivari

28 August 2026

SAS is happy to spotlight the work of member Silvia Amicone (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen), who recently published “Ritual and Connectivity in Nuragic Sardinia: An Interdisciplinary Study of Ceramics and Metalwork from Nuraghe Barru” in Open Archaeology.

Highlights

• Interdisciplinary analysis of ceramics and metal artefacts from Nuraghe Barru provides new evidence for structured depositional and ritual practices during the Final Bronze–Early Iron Age transition in Sardinia.
• Petrographic and pXRF analyses point to connections between Nuragic communities through the movement of objects, materials, technologies, and ideas across and beyond the island, showing how archaeological science can illuminate connectivity and rituality.
• The study shows that nuraghi continued to play important ceremonial and social roles during a period of broader political and cultural transformation, highlighting the changing social life of monuments in later Nuragic society.

This paper presents an interdisciplinary study of ceramics and metal artefacts from Nuraghe Barru (Sardinia), dating to the transition between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Combining archaeological analysis, ceramic petrography, and pXRF, the study investigates depositional practices, material circulation, and the social significance of the site. The evidence points to the intentional deposition of selected objects within a structured context, suggesting that the nuraghe retained an important ceremonial and communal role during a period of broader cultural transformation. Petrographic and compositional analyses indicate connections between Nuragic communities through the movement of objects, materials, technologies, and ideas across and beyond the island. Rather than viewing Nuraghe Barru as an isolated site, the paper situates it within wider networks of interaction and exchange, contributing to ongoing debates on ritual practices, connectivity, and social change in later Nuragic Sardinia.

Congratulations to Silvia and her colleagues! Find out more about how to share your work with a Spotlight.

Amicone, S., Tiezzi, V., Broisch-Höhner, M., Freund, K.P., Heinze, L., Morandi, L.F., Salis, G., Pilo, C., 2026. Ritual and Connectivity in Nuragic Sardinia: An Interdisciplinary Study of Ceramics and Metalwork from Nuraghe Barru. Open Archaeology 12. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2025-0078

Braden Cordivari

24 August 2026

This month’s Reading Recommendation comes from VP for Member Communications Braden Cordivari, who has chosen a newly published paper in Journal of Archaeological Science on the trade in amber by Zuzana Golec Mírová and colleagues, “Amber workshops in Central Europe during the Early Iron Age. Technology, chemical analyses, and Amber Roads.”

The Amber Roads leading from the Baltic to the Mediterranean have long fascinated archaeologists, yet many aspects of the trade remain unclear. This paper is an interesting and thorough synthesis of the latest excavation and chemical data underpinning the discourse. This paper discusses workshop evidence from 41 different sites, showing how amber was worked into beads. Well-preserved and well-excavated workshop sites allow for a step-by-step reconstruction of the chipping, grinding, and drilling that went into turning raw amber into finished objects. The study also combines Raman and infrared spectroscopy as a means for differentiating between eastern and western Baltic sources of amber, allowing for a more detailed look at sourcing and trade. The authors then integrate this chemical data with quantitative modeling of sites and landscape features to show how amber moved across the continent.  

Golec Mírová, Z., Golec, M., Kučera, L., Chytráček, M., Hagemann, K., Mischka, D., Dienstpier, M., Martínek, J., Zemek, V., Přichystal, M., Čižmářová, H., Čižmář, I., Popelka, M., Lečbych, M., Fojtík, P., Parma, D., Sovová, K., Zeman, J., Tomešová, B., Dufek, J., Novák, R., Valentová, J., Hiltscher, T., Krausse, D., Hansen, L., Hoppe, T., Wendling, H., Koch-Waldner, T., Trebsche, P., Praprotnik, T., Potrebica, H., Perkić, D., Dizdar, M., Dmitrović, K., 2026. Amber workshops in Central Europe during the Early Iron Age. Technology, chemical analyses, and Amber Roads. Journal of Archaeological Science 191, 106569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2026.106569

Golec Mírová et al. 2026, Fig. 11. Supplementing the input data for amber roads with strategic chemical analyses that distinguish the origin of amber from Early Iron Age Europe (800‒370 BC; numbers according to Fig. 1) into “Eastern Amber Road” (eastern Baltic Sea) displayed red ‒ Gdańsk, Lithuania and Kaliningrad source; “Western Amber Road” (North Sea and western Baltic Sea) displayed blue ‒ Denmark and northern Germany source (after Supplement 5).

Braden Cordivari

27 July 2026

July’s Reading Recommendation comes from SAS President-Elect Paul Szpak, who shares a pair of exciting articles on advances in nitrogen isotope research. Paul writes:

We have known for 40 years that nitrogen isotopes can provide us with information about the trophic position of an animal – where it sits in the ‘food chain’. This has been very useful for studying past human populations, allowing us to make inferences about the relative importance of, for example, animal and plant foods. One limitation, however, is that we require well-preserved protein in our ancient samples (most commonly collagen in bones), which almost never survives beyond 100,000 years. A series of recent studies have used an ingenious and novel approach to get around this problem. They’ve targeted tooth enamel, which contains very little organic material and therefore also very little protein, and adapted a method that uses bacteria to convert nitrate into nitrous oxide, which can then be used to determine the ratio of nitrogen isotopes in the same. This method was originally designed to measure nitrogen isotopes in seawater nitrate and can work with extremely small quantities of nitrogen, which is an absolute game changer for those interested in studying the deep past. One early application analyzed nitrogen isotopes in the tooth enamel analyzed the enameloid (similar to enamel) in megatooth sharks (Kast et al., 2022), finding that the famous megalodon (Otodus megalodon) was a top predator, feeding on baleen whales. The ancestor of ‘the meg’, the slightly smaller Otodus chubutensis, fed even higher up in the food chain, consuming predatory sperm whale-like creatures that prowled the seas millions of years ago. More recently, this technique was applied to South African australopithecines (Lüdecke et al., 2025) , revealing a predominantly plant-based diet, suggesting limited consumption of animal proteins. This study provided unprecedented insight into the diets of our hominid ancestors and future studies are sure to shed further light on this issue of meat consumption in our hominid ancestors from a quantitative perspective. When did it really become important and how might that connect to other major developments in human history?

Kast, E. R., Griffiths, M. L., Kim, S. L., Rao, Z. C., Shimada, K., Becker, M. A., …
Sigman, D. M. (2022). Cenozoic megatooth sharks occupied extremely high trophic positions. Science Advances, 8(25), eabl6529.

Lüdecke, T., Leichliter, J. N., Stratford, D., Sigman, D. M., Vonhof, H., Haug, G. H., …
Martínez-García, A. (2025). Australopithecus at Sterkfontein did not consume substantial mammalian meat. Science, 387(6731), 309–314.

Lüdecke et al. 2025, Fig. 1: Sterkfontein Member 4 and modern enamel nitrogen isotope data

Braden Cordivari

20 July 2026

SAS has been highlighting research facilitated by our Student and ECR Research Support Award. We are excited to share a paper by 2021 award winner Ahana Ghosh (Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar). Ahana’s paper “Does form entail function? Understanding pottery functionalities through absorbed residues within ceramics from the Harappan sites of Karanpura and Ropar in India” was recently published in Quaternary Environments and Humans.

Highlights

• Uses organic residue analysis (ORA) to directly determine pottery function, moving beyond traditional form-based interpretations.
• This study demonstrates that Harappan pottery was multifunctional, used for processing plant, animal, and possibly aquatic resources. It reinterprets perforated vessels, showing they were not exclusively for dairy but also used for non-dairy/oily substances.
• Highlights the importance of ceramic porosity and environmental factors in lipid absorption and preservation.
• Provides new insights into Harappan foodways and subsistence practices through integration of lipid, faunal, and botanical data

This paper investigates the function of Harappan pottery from Karanpura (Rajasthan) and Ropar (Punjab) using organic residue analysis (ORA) of absorbed lipids. Moving beyond traditional typological approaches, the study directly examines chemical traces within ceramics to identify vessel use. Analysis of 15 potsherds reveals evidence of plant, animal, and possibly aquatic resource processing, indicating that Harappan pottery was multifunctional rather than form-specific. Perforated vessels, often associated with dairy production, show signatures of non-dairy and oily substances, challenging earlier assumptions. The study also highlights the role of ceramic porosity and environmental conditions, such as soil pH, in lipid preservation. By integrating residue data with faunal and botanical evidence, the research reconstructs aspects of Harappan subsistence and culinary practices. Overall, it demonstrates the value of scientific techniques in reinterpreting ancient material culture and provides new insights into foodways and technological practices in the Harappan Culture.

Ghosh, A., Prabhakar, V.N., Reber, E.. A., Liston, H., Kirubakaran, S., K.s., S., Talekar, U., Bhardwaj, M., Vishwakarma, A., Channarayapatna, S., 2025. Does form entail function? Understanding pottery functionalities through absorbed residues within ceramics from the Harappan sites of Karanpura and Ropar in India. Quaternary Environments and Humans 3, 100050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100050

Fig. 5. Ropar: (a) Map of the site representing the layout of the trenches and the sample collection areas for the present study; (b) Present-day photograph of the site showing the exact location of the excavated trench from where the samples were collected (C) Histogram representation of RPR152 (d) Histogram representation of RPR98.

Braden Cordivari

29 June 2026

Happy summer! SAS Representative on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Archaeological Science Ester Oras has passed along an exciting new paper for June’s Executive Board Reading Recommendation. Ester writes:

The paper "Four centuries of commercial whaling eroded 11,000 years of population stability in bowhead whales" by Westbury et al. (Lorenzen's group at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen) stands out as a unique integration of palaeoenvironmental, biological, historical, biomolecular and ecological records. It shows how human induced population decline through commercial whaling has had a direct influence on the demography and genetic diversity of bowhead whales, in fact, even more than the long-term climatic changes throughout the Holocene. An intricate and nuanced insight into human-animal-environment interactions with a serious cautionary tale.

Westbury, M.V., Brown, S.C., Cabrera, A.A., Morales, H.E., Parreira, B., Ma, J., Coll Macià, M., Rey-Iglesia, A., Dyke, A., Scharff-Olsen, C.H., Scott, M.B., Wiig, Ø., Bachmann, L., Kovacs, K.M., Lydersen, C., Ferguson, S.H., Szpak, P., Fordham, D.A., Lorenzen, E.D., 2026. Four centuries of commercial whaling eroded 11,000 years of population stability in bowhead whales. Cell 189, 2040-2053.e19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.02.022