# Analysis by neutron activation analysis a some ancient ceramics from Romanian territories

## 1 Introduction

Ceramics is the most common archaeological material and therefore it is very used material by the historians to draw temporal and cultural characterisations. The importance of knowledge the the compositional scheme of the pottery is well known<sup>1-5</sup> although very rarely one can get important conclusions from the elemental analysis of the potsherds<sup>6-8</sup>.

In this paper we have analyzed samples of Neolthic ceramics from Cucuteni Scanteia - Vaslui county (History Museum from Iasi), and Neolithic and Dacian ceramics from Magurele - near Bucharest (collection of the Scholl from Magurele), Romania, by the method of neutron activation analysis (NAA).

In Table 1 it is presented the list of the analyzed ceramics samples.

## 2 Experimental method

The samples listed in the Table 1 have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis. We considered that the analysis should give an image of the bulk of the objects and therefore the surface of the shards was removed. Also we had into consideration the homogeinity of the samples and that the samples must be representative for the whole object. Samples of 10-30 mg of potsherds have been cut, weighted and wrapped individually in plastic foil. The samples of 10-30 mg have been irradiated at at the rabbit system of VVR-S reactor of the NIPNE, Bucharest-Magurele, at a flux of 1.5 x 10<sup>12</sup> neutrons/cm<sup>2</sup>$``$sec<sup>-1</sup>, for a period of 30 minutes. A standard spectroscopic pure metallic copper was used as neutron flux standard. The radioactivity of the samples has been measured after a decay time of 1…20 h, and again after a decay time of 10…14 d. The measurements have been performed with a Ge(Li) detector, 135 cm<sup>3</sup> coupled at PC with a MCA interface. The system gave a resolution of 2.4 keV at 1.33 MeV (<sup>60</sup>Co). The following elements have been noticed: Fe, K, La, Mn, Na, Sc and Sm.   

## 3 Results and discussions

In the Table 2 are given the results of the neutron activation analysis on the ancient potsherds from Cucuteni Scanteia and Magurele. The concentrations are given in ppm, and when the concentration was larger than 10,000 ppm the result was given in percents. The considered statistical errors have been for La, Mn, Na, Sc and Sm $`<`$5% and $``$10% for K and Fe. The diagram from the Fig. 1 describes the analyzed potsherds from the point of view of all considered elements in the samples. The minimum and maximum limits of the concentrations are shown for all observed elements. One can notice that the 2 compositional schemes are not completely separated and there are regions of interference between Cucuteni group of the objects and Magurele group.   
Searching an characteristic element or ratio of elements for a given region, we have noticed that the ratios Na/Mn, La/Sc and La/Sm could be considered representative and characteristic for a group of analyzed sherds. In Fig. 2a and Fig. 2b are shown the diagrams of the ratios of concentrations Na/Mn versus La/Sc, and respectively Na/Mn versus La/Sm, and one could observe a relative synchronozation of the analyzed objects on the provenance and culture on the mentioned ratios.

References

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