Provenance of the Jerf el Ahmar (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria) obsidians

Frédéric Abbès (1) , Ludovic Bellot-Gurlet (2) , Marie-Claire Cauvin (1) , Sarah Delerue (3) , Stéphan Stephan Dubernet (3) , Gérard Poupeau (3) , Danielle Stordeur (1)

1 Archéorient - ARCHEORIENT - Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien
2 LADIR - Laboratoire de Dynamique Interactions et Réactivité
3 IRAMAT-CRP2A - IRAMAT-Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie

A provenance study of obsidians collected in the Jerf el Ahmar village dated from 9500 to 8700 BC cal (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria) was made from geochemical analyses. The elementary composition of 44 obsidian artefacts and of 19 samples from potential obsidian volcanic sources was determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry and -mass spectrometry (ICP-AES/-MS) or particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersion of X-rays (SEM-EDX). We show that each of these approaches gives reliable source assignment. We found that 42 of the Jerf el Ahmar obsidians came from the Cappadocia (Göllü Dağ volcanic massif) and two from the Bingöl area in Eastern Anatolia. This information confirms the arrival in the Levant of obsidian from the latter sources during the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, most probably in relation with the diffusion of the Neolithic process from the Middle Euphrates Valley towards the Northeast.

Mots clés: Obsidian; Syria; Provenance study

Mots clés: Proche-Orient; étude de provenance; PPNA; néolithique; industrie lithique; obsidienne

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Frédéric Abbès, Ludovic Bellot-Gurlet, Marie-Claire Cauvin, Sarah Delerue, Stéphan Stephan Dubernet, et al.. Provenance of the Jerf el Ahmar (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria) obsidians. Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 2003, 323 (1-3), pp.162-166. ⟨10.1016/S0022-3093(03)00299-0⟩. ⟨halshs-00090862⟩