Archaeometric Study of Potteries Excavated from Deh Dumen Archaeological Site (Southwestern Iran)- Preliminary Results

Technical and analytical studies on archaeological and cultural materials is one of the interesting subjects of the modern archaeological research studies leading to consideration of scientists to find new information about the old technologies and material culture. One of the important cultural and archaeological materials considered by the material scientists and archaeological science scholars are ceramics, especially pottery production in the different periods. In this paper, potteries excavated from the Deh Dumen Bronze Age graveyard (Third millennium BC) located at southwestern Iran were studied by using chemical and petrographic analytical techniques, with the aim to characterize their chemical composition and microstructure and to identify the pottery manufacturing process in this region. For this purpose, twenty-four samples from broken pottery vases were selected among those obtained from the different graves of the site, and were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and polarized optical microscopy (POM) methods. The results of XRF analysis showed that the samples can be classified in two main groups: Ca-rich (or calcareous) and Ca-poor (or non-calcareous) potteries. Furthermore, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 were detected as the main components of samples. On the other hand, the pottery samples present two different structure types: bright and sandwich-like structures. POM examination of the potteries revealed a fine-grained clay matrix with quartz and feldspars fragments as temper. Numerous small and large particles of calcite grains as well as clay pellets are scattered in the matrix of the potteries. Based on these results, it is proved that a large part of the potteries of the Deh Dumen site had been produced by a local and simple pottery manufacturing technique that led to the formation of sandwich-like structure and contained large and small calcitic and clayey inclusions in a large number of potteries. On the other hand, potteries with different microstructures might have been imported form neighbor regions.