Chemical provenance of pre- to post-contact period copper and copper-rich alloy artifacts from archaeological sites in Nova Scotia, Canada : a laser ablation ICP-MS study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Copper had cultural significance to the Mi’kmaq peoples of the Maritimes, and was used in the fabrication of tools and personal, ceremonial, gift, and trade wares. In this study, LA-ICP-MS was used to characterize the trace elemental composition of artifacts from archaeological sites in Nova Scotia ranging from Early Woodland (2500-2400BP) to Protohistoric (450-350 BP) to European contact (1500+BP) periods in age, and samples of natural copper from potential sources with goals of: (i) differentiating artifacts derived \nfrom natural copper from those made from synthetic (refined) European (trade) copper and its alloys, and (ii) identifying the specific natural sources of copper that were exploited. The methodology used in this study improves on previous bulk analytical methods (e.g.,INAA,XRF) that suffer from the presence of contaminating mineral phases within the copper volume analyzed and are more destructive. LA-ICP-MS analysis of 57 artifacts identified 10 compositional groupings with specific elemental enrichment/depletions/ratios, notably involving Ag, Pb, Hg, Bi, Zn and As. Most single artifacts are compositionally homogeneous with respect to the majority of elements with <20% relative variation in concentration over 8-10 ablation spots. Patinas show preferential enrichment (e.g., Fe, Sn, Zn, Au) and depletion (e.g., Ni, Co, Ge, Ag) relative to the fresh metal. However, differences in source composition are significant enough that the patina can be diagnostic of provenance. Three groups have definitive provenance determined: six artifacts from Cap d’Or, Nova Scotia (natural Cu), six from Margaretsville, Nova Scotia (natural Cu), and nine artifacts of European origin (refined Cu or Cu-Zn-Sn alloys). Seven remaining artifact groups have unknown provenance and, importantly, sources analyzed from Michigan, USA (Keweenaw Peninsula) are ruled out. Contrary to the Lake Superior model, copper deposits from the Bay of Fundy were important but many other sources of the metal are likely and require further investigation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".