via Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials, 03 July 2023: Distinct pottery from Ban Chiang, Thailand spanning Pre-metal, Bronze, and Iron Ages analyzed for composition and dated to 1659 BC.
Pottery excavated from the archeological UNESCO world heritage site Ban Chiang in Thailand stem from distinct periods. Black vessels with cord-mark design from Pre-metal Age (ca. 3000–1000 BC), Bronze Age pottery (ca 1000–300 BC) with yellow-brown surface and Iron Age samples (ca. 300 BC–200 AD) with red pictorial surface patterns. In a previous work [Bismayer U., Srilomsak S., Treekamol Y., Tanthanuch W., Suriyatham K. Artefacts from Ban Chiang, Thailand: pottery with hematite-red geometric patterns. Z. Kristallogr. 2020, 235, 559–568] we studied the mineralogical composition and their surface colour materials of shards from Bronze and Iron Age. In this work we focus on bulk features of the dark Pre-metal Age cord-marked ceramic shard PSN2-S10E13 and compare its elemental and mineralogical composition with bulk composition of sample 5412-S6E15 from Bronze Age. Experimental techniques are electron microprobe, X-ray powder diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, optical microscopy and X-ray tomographic microscopy (XTM). Sample PSN2-S10E13 contains more quartz than 5412-S6E15. In the bulk of the Pre-metal Age shard, diffraction signals of mullite occur, indicating higher firing temperatures compared to the younger sample. Phyllosilicate signals are seen in FTIR spectra of both shards. E-modes of quartz dominate FTIR spectra of both samples. Optical thin sections show voids around micro-particles in PSN2-S10E13 and XTM indicates that the pore volume percentage of sample PSN2-S10E13 is higher than in 5412-S6E15. Because of the large age gap to younger samples from Ban Chiang, the proper age of our oldest sample PSN2-S10E13 was determined using an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) by simultaneous 14C/12C and 13C/12C isotope ratio measurements which yielded a radiocarbon age of 3609 ± 29 BP (resp. 1659 ± 29 BC).
Source: Artefacts from Ban Chiang, Thailand: Pre-metal Age cord-marked pottery
