Archaeological research on the metallic and pottery assemblages from the Oxus Basin to the Indus Valley during Protohistory
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
ROXIANA is the first attempt for analyzing ancient potteries and metal on a large in protohistoric Middle Asia. ROXIANA was designed for a better understanding of the development of ancient technologies in Middle Asia, in a time of early urbanization north and south of the Hindu Kush (5th-1st millennia BCE). It is based on archaeometric analyses of the largest corpus of pottery and metal ever analysed on the largest territory and longest span of time (3 millennia). Pottery and metal analysis, at that scale, has a very high heuristic potential. The results of analyses, correlated to the evolution of craft traditions as systems, better define the cultural and material interactions between the considered areas. Pottery studies implied new analytical strategies for determining the elementary composition of the ceramic pastes and paintings, reconstructing the manufacturing and decoration techniques, and dealing with the provenance studies. Metal analyses provided insights into copper technology and alloying (tin, arsenic), a major development of the proto-urban and urban societies in Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands. Combining skills in history, archaeology and physico-chemistry, with scholars and young researchers for the study of a huge amount of artefacts, the project generated a synergy between German and French team. Geochemistry for understanding Middle Asian Protohistory, Pottery: Samples of pottery, and reworked chrono-typologies were first analysed with portable XRF, a test in the use of this method. pXRF results were treated and compared with other approaches: inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS); isotope lead geochemistry; mineralogical characterization of pastes by petrographic observations. Painted decorations: Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE); X-Ray diffraction (XRD); Raman spectrometry; Scanning Electron Microscopy. Metals: Samples were analysed by pXRF (portable XRF), RFA (X-Ray fluorescence, NAA (neutron activation analysis) and lead isotope analysis. Fewer samples were studied by XRD (X-ray Diffraction), microscopy and SEM/EDX (Scanning Electron Microscopy). The results allow the compositional and isotopic grouping of samples. Technological processes (arsenic, tin and lead alloying of copper) and ore locations (raw material and trade) are studied. Main results, pottery: Determination of local/imported/imitated potteries in sites North and South of Hindu Kush, and trace possible ways of exchanges; characterization of manufactures and of the evolution of pottery techniques from Chalcolithic variety to Bronze Age standardization. Metal: Establishment of pXRF for basic information on large sample quantities in preparation of focussed laboratory selection, as well as determination of overall non-quantitative alloy compositions. Detailed chemical & isotopic analysis allows technological groupings and identification of raw material supply networks.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
- La production céramique du Makran (Pakistan) à l'âge du bronze ancien. Contribution à l'étude des peuplements des régions indo-iraniennes, Mémoires des Missions Archéologiques Françaises en Asie Centrale et en Asie Moyenne 14 (Paris 2013)
A. Didier
- Les cultures à céramique modelée peinte de l´âge du fer ancien: quelques pistes de réflexion d´après les exemples de Koktepe, Dzharkutan (Ouzbékistan) et Ulug dépé (Turkménistan). Cahiers d´Asie Centrale 21-22, 2013, 357- 372
J. Lhuillier, J. Bendezu-Sarmiento, O. Lecomte, C. Rapin
- Contacts across the Hindu Kush in the Early Bronze Age. Additional Insights from Sarazm – Soundings 11-11A (Tajikistan). Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 46, p. 123-147, 2014
B. Mutin, A. Razzokov
- Gonur-Depe. Eine bronzezeitliche Königsstadt in Mittelasien. Mitteilungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 35, 2014, 15-24
N. Boroffka
- La fin de la civilisation de l’Oxus. Transformations et recomposition des sociétés de l’âge du Bronze final en Asie centrale méridionale. Mémoires des Missions Archéologiques Françaises en Asie Centrale et en Asie Moyenne 16. De Boccard (Paris 2014)
É. Luneau
- ROXIANA – Forschungen zu Metall und Keramik der späteren Urgeschichte zwischen Amu Dar´ja Becken und Indus. In: S. Hansen (ed.), Aktuelle Forschungen in Eurasien, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Eurasien-Abteilung (Berlin 2014), 82-83
N. Boroffka
- The Jaz II and III period pottery. Classification and chronology viewed from Bandykhan, Southern Uzbekistan. In: Marcin Wagner (ed.), Pottery chronology of the Early Iron Age in Central Asia. Kazimierz Michałowski Foundation, Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw (Warszawa 2013 [2014]), 49-74
N. G. O. Boroffka, L. M. Sverchkov
- XRF analysis of a chalcolithic dagger from Dashly Depe (Turkemistan), Miras, 2015, № 1, 56-57
S. Kraus, G. Yagshimuradov
- Материалы поселения эпохи поздней бронзы Молали. Археология Узбекистана № 1 (10), 2015, 75-88
Л. М. Сверчков, Н. Бороффка
- Период Яз-II: Этапы и хронология. Вестник Археологии, Антропологии и Этнографии № 1 (32), 2016, 5-18
Л. М. Сверчков, Н. Бороффка
