Provenance of pottery determined by soil physicochemical and chemometric methods: A case study from Frederiksgave, Ghana

The suitability of using traditional soil chemical and mineralogical
methods combined with chemometrics to trace provenance of archaeological
samples was tested on potsherds from Frederiksgave, a
former Danish plantation in southern Ghana, in use from 18301850.
Soil and six potsherds from Frederiksgave, together with potsherds
from two likely production sites at Ga and Dangme Shai, were investigated
by visual inspection, total element analysis and X-ray
diffraction and the results analyzed by principal component analysis
(PCA) and cluster analysis. The investigation clearly showed that
the Frederiksgave pots were not locally produced but came from
other production sites indicating trading interaction between the
plantation and surrounding settlements. One sample undoubtedly
originated from Dangme Shai and another one must have been produced
at a third (unknown) site. The provenance of the remaining
samples is uncertain, but possibly three of them came from Ga and
maybe one from Dangme Shai. Ill-defined compositional variation
at Dangme Shai and Ga sites is thought to be the main reason for
the observed difficulties in tracing the precise provenance of the
Frederiksgave samples.