The Frankfurt University's Southeast Anatolia Project (SOAP): Archaeometric investigations on Early Bronze Age pottery

•The North-Mesopotamian Metallic Ware and clay samples from Southeast Anatolia and North Syria were analysed.•The results indicate that the raw clay of the non-calcareous Metallic Ware is derived from metamorphic rocks such as schist or similar rocks.•Clay deposits in the Pütürge Massif area, southeast of Malatya may be source of the non-calcareous Metallic Ware group.

This paper is a first report on the chemical analyses carried out on samples of North-Mesopotamian Metallic Ware from Southeast Anatolia and on clay samples from the Pütürge Massif area, southeast of Malatya (Turkey), collected in the framework of the Southeast Anatolia Project (SOAP) of the Goethe University of Frankfurt/M. The chemical data obtained by applying wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF) spectrometer were used to locate the provenance area of the raw clay source of non-calcareous North-Mesopotamian Metallic Ware, which is a characteristic major feature of the population groups settling in Southeast Anatolia and Northeast Syria in the 3rd millennium B.C. The analytical results show that the raw clay source of the pottery derived from metamorphic rocks with felsic affinity (e.g., schist/slate or similar parent rocks). It is suggested that the similar metamorphic rocks exposed in the Pütürge Massif area may be the source for the non-calcareous clay of the North-Mesopotamian Metallic Ware.