A geochemical study was undertaken to evaluate whether it was possible to accurately fingerprint Scottish, post-medieval and later red ware pottery sherds. The primary objective was to establish a set of criteria to distinguish between the pottery sherds on both a site and regional basis as an aid to provenancing. These preliminary investigations also utilised the British Geological Survey’s national geochemical database of stream sediment analyses as an aid to predicting the potential clay source regions. The results of this study clearly demonstrate the potential power of this combined geochemical and statistical approach, and its application to archaeological site investigations.
An Evaluation of Geochemical Fingerprinting for the Provenancing of Scottish Redware Pottery
15 May 2025