A comparative study of PGAA and portable XRF used for non-destructive provenancing archaeological obsidian

Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis has successfully been applied to provenance research on Carpathian obsidians. The effectiveness of PGAA and a portable XRF device in discriminations of Carpathian, Lipari, Sardinia and Melos origin obsidians was compared on 75 representative geological samples obtained from the Lihotheca Collection of the Hungarian National Museum. Bivariate analyses and Principal Component Analysis have been made based on the individual PGAA and XRF data, as well as on the combination of both data types. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis was also applied on a group of 17 samples. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed to determine the best possible way of investigations to fingerprint and characterize long-distance trade items with minimal damage to the samples.