Obsidians from the Kerkennah Islands (eastern Tunisia) and the PIXE elemental compositions of the Mediterranean peralkaline obsidians

The provenance of 37 obsidians from the Kerkennah Islands (central Mediterranean Sea) was determined by PIXE. It is shown that they came from the two main obsidian sources, Balata dei Turchi and Lago di Venere, of the Pantelleria Island. A comparison of the PIXE elemental composition of geological vs. archaeological obsidians of central and western Mediterranean shows that their sources present elemental compositions homogeneous enough to make possible sourcing studies. However, a comparison between the distributions of geological and archaeological obsidians chemistry shows that the PIXE source qualifications do not cover yet the whole of their internal variations.