Time Machines; An exploration of Roman period copper-alloy objects in an Estonian tarand cemetery, using pXRF

Abstract

This paper presents a new qualitative method for the use of pXRF in archaeological research. A bulk, multi-elemental approach applies a non-destructive survey technique to the copper-alloy objects recovered in a Roman period tarand cemetery, in north-east Estonia. The aim is to explore the chronological development of the cemetery by comparing the objects and their find locations against historically known changes in alloy composition. Then a more focused destructive analysis is undertaken from a selected group of bracelets commonly found in these northerly cemeteries, but also in greater numbers in the Roman provinces. The results revealed strong correlations between alloy classification and find location. Furthermore, the quantitative (destructive) analysis of a single bracelet has added to the debate about the nature of long-distance contact between the people of north-eastern Estonia, the southern Baltic and the distant Roman frontier. It also raises the possibility that these people were placing Roman produced items into their cemeteries in the decades before the traditionally accepted start of the Roman Iron Age. This suggests that a new assessment for its beginning is called for, one that aligns the earliest imported Roman items to the first half of the 1st century AD.