A Study on the Materiality of Black Stone Excavated From the Dingsishan Assemblage in Yongning County, Guangxi
LI Ying1, 2, ZHOU Zhen-yu3, YANG Yi-min1, 2, LUO Wu-gan1, 2*
1. Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China
2. Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3. Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Abstract：It is a fundamental assignment and an essential work to identify stone tools in the paleolithic archaeology study because the material is an essential factor influencing manufacturing technology, the shape and the type of tools, the stone industry, and the cultural features of one site. However, archaeologists may misjudge the stone tools material only from morphology, especially when identifying natural glasses, such as tektite and obsidian, which have a similar appearance. Many examples manifest that it is unreliable only to use the manual inspection to indentify the stone material. Hence, using scientific instruments to obtain more information to identify the materials is a more reliable way. Dingsishan site, as a significant stone age site in the Lingnan area, provides valuable information about the characteristics and connotation of prehistoric culture in Guangxi, and allows the exploration of the prehistoric cultural exchanges between Guangxi and surrounding areas. However, the explorers doubted the rature of black stone artifacts unearthed in the Dingsishan site. So in this article, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Energy Dispersion X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (ED-XRF) were used to analyze the material of black stones. Eleven black stones were excavated from the Dingsishan Assemblage in Yongning County, Guangxi, and two black stones were collected from Baise, Guangxi. The Raman spectroscopy results indicate that samples are amorphous SiO2. Moreover, all the samples have a strong peak at 380 cm-1, which may be caused by pyrite. The FT-IR results reveal that all samples have no prominent absorption peaks at 750~500 cm-1 and no shoulder peaks at 1 200~900 cm-1, indicating no plagioclase or quartz in the samples, which is consistent with the characteristics of tektite. The chemical composition results indicate that SiO2 and Al2O3 mainly compose the samples. Additionally, the samples have high iron and alkaline earth oxide (RO) contents and low alkali (R2O) contents. Furthermore, the ratio of R2O/RO is less than 1, and the ratio of K2O/CaO is about 1. All these chemical composition features are in accord with the composition characteristics of the tektite. Based on the above results, it can be determined that the 13 black stones analyzed in this article are tektite. This article can provide more references about the raw material sources and the activity range of prehistoric people. Dingsishan site, as one of the most critical Stones Age assemblages in South China, the follow-up stone source study in this assemblage can provide more information for the exchange system among south China and their surrounding areas (Southeast Asia).
李 颖，周振宇，杨益民，罗武干. 广西邕宁顶蛳山遗址出土黑色石料材质的光谱无损分析[J]. 光谱学与光谱分析, 2022, 42(01): 253-257.
LI Ying, ZHOU Zhen-yu, YANG Yi-min, LUO Wu-gan. A Study on the Materiality of Black Stone Excavated From the Dingsishan Assemblage in Yongning County, Guangxi. SPECTROSCOPY AND SPECTRAL ANALYSIS, 2022, 42(01): 253-257.
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