Sourcing Obsidian from Late Neolithic Sites on the Great Hungarian Plain

prehistoric sites throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The limited number of obsidian
geological sources in the region, combined with the relatively homogeneous nature of obsidian and the
increased use of new techniques for conducting compositional analysis in the field, has facilitated an
accurate sourcing of obsidian artefacts from sites in the region. This article presents the compositional
results of 203 obsidian artefacts recovered from seven Late Neolithic (5,000–4,500 BCE) sites from the
Great Hungarian Plain. Compositional results of the archaeological specimens obtained with a Bruker
portable X-ray fluorescence device (p-XRF) were compared with obsidian geological compositional
data to determine artefact provenance. By sourcing the obsidian chipped stone tools, it is possible
to reconstruct prehistoric patterns of exploitation/exchange and to note how these patterns vary
throughout the Plain. The results illustrate that the majority of the studied artefacts originated from
the Carpathian 1 source and only a limited number of samples came from the Carpathian 2E and
Carpathian 2T sources. Based on this preliminary study, the variation in geological source exploitation
may be linked to socio-cultural practices that differentiated the Tisza and Herpály archaeological units
during the Late Neolithic.