Elemental prospecting and geoarchaeology in Turkey and Mexico

Understanding past human impacts on soils requires many forms of evidence including elemental chemistry. Human activities leave traces of different elements, distinguishing activity sites. Since the 1990s more scholars have used a full range of analytical techniques including inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP/AES), and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP/MS). Also since that time the near singular focus on phosphate as a prime indicator of human activity has broadened to include a large suite of elemental indicators, aided by the emergence of many tools and techniques such as ICP. This paper focuses on the elemental chemistry of sediments at two archaeology sites, Chunchucmil, Mexico, and Kinet, Turkey. The purpose of this study is to understand how certain elements correlate with each other and vary by space and time at different archaeology sites, and as an important methodological consideration, how different solvents affect ICP-AES analyses. In other words, does human activity significantly alter the elemental chemistry of a site, and if so, is this in a systematic way or does it vary geographically? And, are these chemical signatures of human activity hidden or highlighted by different ICP methods? We examined soil chemistry by types of geomorphic and archaeological location contexts (e.g., floors, natural deposits, walls, streets) and by age of deposit (e.g., Hellenistic, Iron Age) to detect differences in soil chemistry signatures associated with them, and for regional variations in ICP methods’ effectiveness. Our analyses revealed detectable differences between natural and anthropogenic deposits, site types, eras, and large differences between methods. High amounts of lead were correlated with streets and rooms in the Medieval and Bronze periods in Kinet, Turkey and natural deposits had lower levels of cadmium and mercury. ICP-NP treatments revealed higher detection levels of most elements than did ICP-DT treatments in Chunchucmil, Mexico.