Petrography and Micromorphology Face-to-Face: the Potential of Multivocality in the Study of Earth-Based Archaeological Materials

Soils and sediments are among the most commonly found materials in archaeological contexts, occurring in a myriad of forms. We need only think of pottery, which is a manipulated and fired sediment, or the different earthen deposits that compose the bulk of many sites. Traditionally, the study of the microscopic and compositional characteristics of pottery has been the focus of ceramic archaeometry, while the microstratigraphic analysis of archaeological sediments was always the main task of geoarchaeology. In this paper, the authors explore the potential of a closer collaboration between researchers dealing with the same type of raw material and often using the same methods (optical microscopy), who rarely confront the approaches and expertise of the other field. For this purpose, two samples belonging to the pre-historic and early historic site of Arslantepe were selected for a methodological exercise: a fragment of an andiron and a piece of a double-vaulted oven. Ultimately, the results of this work demonstrate that researchers from both fields can profit from a more intense exchange: one that takes advantage of the expertise developed in answering distinct but complementary research questions, and calls for the blurring of strict inter-disciplinary boundaries.