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Archeometric characterization of prehistoric grindstones from Milazzo Bronze Age settlement (Sicily, Italy)

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Abstract

The results of a petrographic and geochemical study carried out on archeological grindstones allow to provide new constraints on protohistoric commercial exchanges over the Mediterranean area. Eleven grindstones, discovered in an archeological site located in Milazzo (Messina, Sicily) and dated from the Early Bronze Age, have been investigated by geochemical and petrographic techniques. The raw materials are mainly volcanic rocks characterized by calc-alkaline and K-alkaline affinities with volcanic arc geochemical signature. Only one sample, made of basalt belonging to the Na-alkaline series, shows an intraplate signature. The comparison with the available literature data for similar rocks allowed constraining the volcanic origin of the exploited lavas. While the intraplate-type raw material came from Mt. Etna Volcano (Sicily), the arc-type volcanic rocks are mostly trachyandesites, basaltic andesites, and one rhyolite. Although most of them come from the Aeolian Arc, a provenance of some samples from the Aegean Arc cannot be excluded. This last region could represent the most probable provenance area for the rhyolite sample.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Simona Bigi (XRF Laboratory of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) for the chemical analyses of the major elements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche e Informatiche, Scienze Fisiche e Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Messina, Viale G. d’Alcontres 31, 98166, Sant’Agata, Messina, Italy

    Marcella Di Bella, Simona Quartieri, Alessandro Tripodo & Giuseppe Sabatino

  2. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sez. Palermo, Via Ugo La Malfa, 153, 90146, Palermo, Italy

    Marcella Di Bella & Francesco Italiano

  3. Museo Archeologico Regionale Eoliano “Luigi Bernabò Brea”, Lipari, Aeolian Islands, Messina, Italy

    Maria Clara Martinelli

  4. Dipartimento di Scienze, Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Corso Italia, 57, 95129, Catania, Italy

    Paolo Mazzoleni

  5. Unità Operativa Beni Archeologici, Soprintendenza Beni Culturali ed Ambientali, Messina, Italy

    Gabriella Tigano

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  1. Marcella Di Bella
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  2. Francesco Italiano
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  3. Maria Clara Martinelli
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  4. Paolo Mazzoleni
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  5. Simona Quartieri
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Correspondence to Marcella Di Bella.

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Di Bella, M., Italiano, F., Martinelli, M.C. et al. Archeometric characterization of prehistoric grindstones from Milazzo Bronze Age settlement (Sicily, Italy). Archaeol Anthropol Sci 10, 1571–1583 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0483-8

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