Sources of flint in Britain and Ireland: a quantitative assessment of geochemical characterisation using acid digestion inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of acid digestion inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to determine the source of flint used for tool-making during British and Irish prehistory. To achieve this, ICP-MS was used to characterise flint geochemistry and to determine whether flint sources in Britain and Ireland can be distinguished using this method. Samples were obtained from the Northern, Southern, and Transitional Chalk provinces in England, as well as the Northern Ireland Chalk formation. This paper presents preliminary quantitative analysis of these samples and demonstrates that acid digestion ICP-MS is capable of distinguishing flint sourced from within and between the different Chalk provinces using discriminant function analysis. The implications of this research are discussed as well as directions for future study