Provenance studies of obsidian artefacts from Turkish Neolithic sites using an interdisciplinary approach INAA and Fission Track Dating

This work reports the results of an interdisciplinary study aimed to contribute to a better understanding of circulation of obsidian during prehistoric times in Turkey. Fission-track (FT) dating and trace element composition by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), were applied to obsidian artefacts from four Neolithic sites of eastern Anatolia and from Hocaçeçme, which is located near the Greek border, in the Edime region. Both INAA as well as FT dating confirm that a variety of sources can be represented in the same site in the same stratigraphie level. Whereas the Anatolian studied sites yielded only artefacts originated from eastern Anatolian sources, those of Hocaçeçme have a central Anatolian provenance (Gôllüdag and Hasandag volcanic complexes). An unambiguous identification was attained for some eastern Anatolian sources - the Bingol and the Nemrut Dagi obsidians. For other sources only a generic attribution to the Bingol - Mu§ - Karliova triangle and to the Quaternary volcanic edifices located along the north coast of Lake Van can be made. Results of this study confirm that further detailed field work is needed in order to attain an adequate stage of knowledge of the Anatolian potential natural sources of raw material of prehistoric obsidian artefacts.