Applying a Multi-Proxy Approach to the Analysis of Archaeological Survey Ceramics from the Middle Euphrates

This paper was presented at the YRA Workshop 2025 in Budapest.

This presentation will focus on my doctoral project, which I completed in 2025, although it has not yet been published. Within that project, I examined a large archaeological survey ceramic complex from the middle Euphrates region of Syria. The aim of the project was to analyze this material using a multi-analytical approach, with portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis (p-ED-XRF) playing a central role. The study investigates whether p-ED-XRF provides sufficiently accurate data to reconstruct ceramic production and distribution in early societies and what complementary methods might need to be employed. I first evaluated the p-ED-XRF in comparison to the conventional method of WD-XRF. The relatively disappointing results show that a combination of selected scientific analyses with both macroscopic and microscopic analysis of technological features is necessary to reconstruct the stages of an individual object’s biography and, in aggregate, the economic processes of the region, which should be demonstrated using a chronologically narrower sample. Finally, based on information generated through the selected methodology for 227 ceramic fragments from the 5th and 4th millennium BCE, differences in manufacturing techniques, raw material use, and style over different periods were examined. The focus was on the development of technologies and their influence on the region’s economic structures. It is found that ceramic production was predominantly local, and specialized household industries developed. The project show, that only the combination of multiple methods allows a comprehensive analysis of ceramic production and distribution in that archaeological research region.

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