Evaluation of PGAA data for provenance of lithic artifacts

The objectives of the study were to determine whether Prompt Gamma Activation Analyses (PGAA) could be successfully used to trace the source(s) of various Neolithic artifacts made of microcrystaline quartz. Two macroscopically identical sources of jasper from central and western Romania were analyzed by PGAA along with five Neolithic artifacts from the Limba site (Alba County). Due to the limited number of trace elements, which can be measured by PGAA, this method when used alone might produce inconclusive results for discriminating between jaspers from different sources. The interpretation of the data may be used for general assessments of provenance involving larger sample sets or in combination with optical microscopy