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The use of different amber sources in Italy during the Bronze Age: new archaeometric data

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Abstract

The production of amber ornaments occurred in Italy during the Eneolithic (E)–Early Bronze Age (EBA), although very few beads from the Italian peninsula have been found and analysed. The number of data available for provenience study of Bronze Age ambers is larger, but still a precise picture of when and to what extent the local sources of amber were exploited is lacking. In the present work, 22 amber finds from six Sicilian sites have been studied and analysed by infrared spectroscopy, in particular with DRIFT (diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transformed) analyses. The amber samples are dated between the Eneolithic and the Final Bronze Age–Early Iron Age and are from the collections of the P. Orsi Museum, in Syracuse (Sicily). The data show that only simetite was used in South Italy in the Late Eneolithic (LE)–EBA. In the Bronze Age, the exploitation of simetite shows different intensity in different chronological phases. The results are discussed in comparison with the information available for coeval European ambers.

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Acknowledgments

The Paolo Orsi Museum is acknowledged for the permission to study the materials; Angela M. Manenti and Concetta Ciurcina (who was the director of the Museum when the sampling was performed) are thanked for their kind help. The Soprindendenza per I Beni Archeologici of the Sicilia region is thanked for the permission to study and sample the amber finds. The research was supported by funding of the I.I.P.P. (Italian Institute of Prehistory and Protohistory). Prof. A. Pavese (University of Milan) kindly made the infrared instrumentation available for the measurements.

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  1. Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Padova, Piazza Capitaniato 7, 35139, Padova, Italy

    Ivana Angelini

  2. Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali, Ufficio Beni Archeologici, Via Mantova 67, 38122, Trento, Italy

    Paolo Bellintani

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  1. Ivana Angelini
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Angelini, I., Bellintani, P. The use of different amber sources in Italy during the Bronze Age: new archaeometric data. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 9, 673–684 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0452-7

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